She is the nationally best-selling author of My (Underground) American Dream and Someone Like Me. Her newest book, You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation, is a powerful dual polemic and manifesto against the myth that assimilation leads to happiness and belonging for immigrants in America.

Those attending the program will have an opportunity to take home a free copy of You Sound Like a White Girl, provided by the LA Made fund.

RSVP:

RSVP at jfrson@lapl.org or call 323-734-8573.

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

Date: Monday the 24^th

Time: 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm

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

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/author-event-julissa-arce

Book Discussion for Adults: The Women at Sorensen Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Read, then come discuss this bestselling novel The Women, by author Kristin Hannah set during the Vietnam War. For adults.

Pick up a copy for checkout at the Customer Service Desk today.

Where: Sorensen Library, LACL

Date: Monday the 24^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 6034 Broadway Ave., Whittier, CA 90606

This searingly intimate memoir in essays, spanning Lamya’s childhood to her arrival in the United States for college through early-adult life in New York City, tells a universal story of courage, trust, and love, celebrating what it means to be a seeker and an architect of one’s own life.

Lamya H is a former Lambda Literary Fellow whose writing has appeared in Vice, Salon, Vox, Black Girl Dangerous, Autostraddle, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She currently lives in New York with her partner.

Where: Cellar Door Books

Date: Monday the 24^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/lgbtq-book-club-hijab-butch-blues

Mar Vista Book Club: Madame Bovary at Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Madame Bovary, by Gustav Flaubert.

Where: Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 24^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mar-vista-book-club-books-and-communi-tea

Joshua Hammer & The Mesopotamian Riddle at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Joshua Hammer will discuss and sign, The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to Decipher the World’s Oldest Writing.

A rollicking adventure starring three free-spirited Victorians on a twenty-year quest to decipher cuneiform, the oldest writing in the world—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu.

It was one of history’s great vanishing acts.

Around 3,400 BCE—as humans were gathering in complex urban settlements—a scribe in the mud-walled city-state of Uruk picked up a reed stylus to press tiny symbols into clay. For three millennia, wedge shape cuneiform script would record the military conquests, scientific discoveries, and epic literature of the great Mesopotamian kingdoms of Sumer, Assyria, and Babylon and of Persia’s mighty Achaemenid Empire, along with precious minutiae about everyday life in the cradle of civilization. And then…the meaning of the characters was lost.

London, 1857. In an era obsessed with human progress, mysterious palaces emerging from the desert sands had captured the Victorian public’s imagination. Yet Europe’s best philologists struggled to decipher the bizarre inscriptions excavators were digging up.

Enter a swashbuckling archaeologist, a suave British military officer turned diplomat, and a cloistered Irish rector, all vying for glory in a race to decipher this script that would enable them to peek farther back into human history than ever before.

From the ruins of Persepolis to lawless outposts of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, The Mesopotamian Riddle whisks you on a wild adventure through the golden age of archaeology in an epic quest to understand our past. 

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Monday the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/joshua-hammer

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 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92501

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

Under the Tree We Dream: a Monthly Writing Circle with Alex Petunia at Holy Grounds Coffee – In-Person Event

An Invitation to write and dream with generative props and creative community.

Hosted by Alex Petunia.

All writing levels welcome.

Entrance requires a drink purchase.

Where: Holy Grounds

Date: Monday the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

Address: 5371 Alhambra Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90032

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DEOGc5KSBsC/?img_index=1

At Skylight: Jane Borden, with Doree Sahair, & Cults Like Us at Skylight – In-Person Event

Jane Borden, in conversation with Doree Shafir, will discuss Cults Like Us.

For readers of Fantasyland and Cultish, a colorful and enlightening pop history that explains why the eccentric doomsday beliefs of our Puritan founders are still driving American culture today, contextualizes the current rise in far-right extremism as a natural result of our latent indoctrination, and proposes that the United States is the largest cult of all.

Since the Mayflower sidled up to Plymouth Rock, cult ideology has been ingrained in the DNA of the United States. In this eye-opening book, journalist Jane Borden argues that Puritan doomsday belief never went away; it went secular and became American culture. From our fascination with cowboys and superheroes to our allegiance to influencers and self-help, susceptibility to advertising, and undying devotion to the self-made man, Americans remain particularly vulnerable to a specific brand of cult-like thinking.

With in-depth research and compelling insight, Borden uncovers the American history you didn’t learn in school, including how we are still being brainwashed, making us a nation of easy marks for con artists and strong men. Along the way, she also revisits some of the most fascinating cults in this country—including, the Mankind United and Love Has Won—presenting them as integral parts of our national psyche rather than aberrations.

Jane Borden is an author and culture journalist. She is the author of Cults Like Us and I Totally Meant to Do That. Her work has been featured in Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and other publications. She lives in Los Angeles. Find out more at JaneBorden.com.

Doree Shafrir is a writer and podcaster. She is the author of Startup: A Novel (Little, Brown, 2017) and the memoir Thanks for Waiting (Ballantine, 2021), and the host of the podcasts Forever35 and Matt & Doree’s Eggcellent Adventure. She also writes the “Good Job” workplace advice column for Slate. She is the former Executive Editor of BuzzFeed News and has also worked as a writer and editor at Rolling Stone and The New York Observer. She lives with her family in Los Angeles.

Where: Skylight

Date: Monday the 24^th

Time: 7 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-jane-borden-presents-cults-us 

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 24^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm

Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monday-night-fiction-workshop-tickets-1291169846769

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 25^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/1885820250325

Book Event: Sarah Selecky & Story Is a State of Mind at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Sarah Selecky will discuss and sign her book, Story Is a State of Mind.

Stop by and chat with Sarah, get some writing tips, and pick up a copy of her latest book!

Sarah Selecky is the author of This Cake Is for the Party, a finalist for both the Giller Prize and Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book in Canada and the Caribbean and was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. The New York Times called the stories “utterly fascinating.” Her novel Radiant Shimmering Light was optioned by Amy Adams for HBO. Selecky holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and brings a contemplative approach to her work as an author and writing mentor. In 2011, she founded the Sarah Selecky Writing School, fostering a global community of writers dedicated to developing both craft and creative intuition. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

This book is designed for authors seeking support on individual projects or their practice as a whole, and is overflowing with tips and tools to develop and support creative curiosity and whole-minded writing.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 11 am

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

Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

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

Where: Chevalier’s Books

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 4 pm – 5 pm

Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004

This event is co-sponsored by the English Department at Pomona College

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Pomona College, Benton Art Museum

Date: Tuesday, the 25^th

Time: 4:15 pm – 6:30 pm

Address: 120 W Bonita Ave., Claremont, CA 91711 

We meet on Zoom every last Tuesday from 4:30 – 5:30 p.m.

This month’s book is, I Hope This Doesn’t Find You by Ann Liang. Copies of the book are available at the Circulation Desk for check out!

Ages 14-18 only.

Where: Venice – Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Where: Venice – Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/online-book-club-0 

Book Club: The Teller of Small Fortunes at El Monte Library, LACL

Participants will discuss the novel, The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong.

This is a facilitated discussion of fiction and non-fiction titles. A limited number of copies are available for book club attendees at the library. For adults.

Where: Iacoboni Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

Address: 224 Tyler Ave, El Monte, CA 91731

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13008049

Book Discussion Event: Little Tokyo Goes Nuclear: Three Decades at the Atomic Café at Robert Louis Stevenson Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Little Tokyo Goes Nuclear: Three Decades at the Atomic Cafe, follows the fictional love story of Troy and Kei amidst the racial tensions of the 1960s to the emerging reparations movement for Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII and the café’s punk rock heyday in the 1980s.

Join us for the reading of Chapter One: The Sixties which sets the stage for Troy and Kei’s budding relationship, following them through generational conflicts with their parents and the cost to their own generation from the unending Vietnam War. As young adults, Troy and Kei struggle to find common ground as each shapes their own meaning of loyalty, sacrifice, and family.

Tucked away in Little Tokyo, The Atomic Café served as a sanctuary for the Japanese American and Los Angeles community from 1946 until 1989. Through the years, the café was the communal space for hard decisions, farewells, home comings, and community.

Where: Robert Louis Stevenson Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 803 Spence St., Los Angeles, CA 90023 

Copies of the book will be available at the customer service desk. This program is for adults.

Where: Angelo M.Iacoboni Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 4990 Clark Ave., Lakewood, CA 90712

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13006441

LGBTQ+ Book Club: Our Evenings at West Hollywood Library, LACL In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Participants will discuss the novel Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst.

Summary provided by the publisher:

Dave Win, the son of a British dressmaker and a Burmese man he’s never met, is thirteen years old when he gets a scholarship to a top boarding school. With the doors of elite English society cracked open for him, heady new possibilities lie before Dave, even as he is exposed to the envy and viciousness of his wealthy classmates, above all that of Giles Hadlow, whose worldly parents sponsored the scholarship and who find in Dave someone they can more easily nurture than their brutish son.

Our Evenings follows Dave from the 1960s on—through the possibilities that remained open for him, and others that proved to be illusory: as a working-class brown child in a decidedly white institution; a young man discovering queer culture and experiencing his first, formative love affairs; a talented but often overlooked actor, on the road with an experimental theater company; and an older Londoner whose late-in-life marriage fills his days with an unexpected sense of happiness and security.

Please contact the library to borrow a print copy of the book. eBook and eAudiobook are available through Libby app/OverDrive.

Please register at the link below to receive the link to the meeting via email.

Zoom: https://library-lacounty-gov.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0pd-Goqz4uGNNbzVuW720zsRrGxTK1VeLG

Where: West Hollywood Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12310276

Hooked on Books Book Club: The Fury at Quartz Hill Library, LACL In-Person Event

Participants will discuss the thriller The Fury by Alex Michaelides.

The Fury is about a reclusive ex-movie star and her famous friends whose spontaneous trip to a private Greek island is upended by a murder. For adults.

Where: Quartz Hill Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 5040 W. Ave. M 2, Quartz Hill, CA 93536

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12893164

Phy-Sci Book Club: All of Silent Spring + First 1/3 of Silent Spring Revolutions at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss all of the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and1/3 of Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening by Douglas Brinkley.

Silent Spring by author Rachel Carson was the classic book that launched the environmental revolution of the 20^th century.

Silent Spring Revolution by author Douglas Brinkley is the story of an indomitable generation that saved the natural world under the leadership of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon.

Where: Cellar Door Books

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/phy-sci-book-club-all-silent-spring-first-13-silent-spring-revolution

Agoura Readers Book Club: The Mighty Red at Agoura Hills Library, LACL– Online Event

Participants will discuss the novel, The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich.

Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: Online Event (see site) 

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12893175

Mystery Book Club: Two Kinds of Truth at Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us for a discussion of Two Kinds of Truth by author Michael Connolly.

Where: Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: 6400 Playa Vista Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90094

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-58

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.”

Days and Times: Tuesdays (weekly); 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

To enroll in our series, visit: https://classroom.google.com

Nuestra serie de clases bilingües comunitarias de escritura ‘Conchas y Café’ es un curso virtual de 15 semanas que explora técnicas poéticas y otras formas de escritura creativa. Autores de todo nivel técnico son bienvenidos a participar.

Where: DSTL Arts

Date: Tuesday the 25^th (through May 6, 2025)

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

Address: Online Event

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

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 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 10 pm

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

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

The unnamed Iranian Indian American narrator of Liquid has always believed herself to be the smartest person in the room. And from an early age, she and her best friend—a poet-turned-marketer named Adam—have turned their noses up at other peoples’ riches. But two years after earning a PhD from UCLA, the narrator is no closer to the middle-class comfort promised to her by the prestige of her fancy, scholarship-funded education and the successes of her immigrant parents. Jokingly, Adam suggests she just “marry rich.”

But our protagonist, whose PhD thesis compared Eastern and Western views of marriage in film and literature, takes the idea seriously. She makes a spreadsheet and outlines a goal: 100 dates with people of all genders and a marriage proposal in hand by the official start of the fall semester. What follows is a whirlwind summer packed with dating: martinis sans vermouth with the lazy scion of an Eastside construction empire; board games with a butch producer who owns a house in the hills and a newly dented Porsche; a Venmo request from a “socialist” trust fund babe; and an evening spent dodging the halitosis of a maxillofacial surgeon from Orange County.

Only a tragedy in Tehran and an overdue familial reckoning can alter the narrator’s increasingly manic trajectory and force her to confront the contradictions of her life in Los Angeles. And as doubts begin to creep in about her marriage project, it suddenly seems possible that the eligible prospect she’s been looking for has been beneath her nose the entire time.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/mariam-rahmani-justin-torres

Illustrating the Power of Poetry: Matthew Burgess, Doug Salati, and Marla Frazee at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Event

Join Once Upon A Time in welcoming award-winning author Matthew Burgess & Caldecott Medalist Doug Salati (Words with Wings and Magic Things) and three-time Caldecott Honoree Marla Frazee (How Elegant the Elephant) as they converse about collaboration, the power of poetry and the process of illustrating poems for children.

After the conversation, the creators will be available to sign books. This would be beneficial to teachers, librarians and anyone who works with children to inspire their creativity.

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 25^th

Time: 7 pm

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/power-poetry-burgess-salati-frazee

Celia Laskey, with Amy Spaulding, & Cover Story at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

This LA book event features Celia Laskey, in conversation with Amy Spaulding, to discuss her novel Cover Story.

A book signing will follow the discussion.

Everyone is welcome. RSVP required.

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

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323

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

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

Participants will discuss The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett.

About the book:

In Daretana’s greatest mansion, a high imperial officer lies dead—killed, to all appearances, when a tree erupted from his body. Even here at the Empire’s borders, where contagions abound and the blood of the leviathans works strange magical changes, it’s a death both terrifying and impossible.

Assigned to investigate is Ana Dolabra, a detective whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities. Rumor has it that she wears a blindfold at all times, and that she can solve impossible cases without even stepping outside the walls of her home.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, magically altered in ways that make him the perfect aide to Ana’s brilliance. Din is at turns scandalized, perplexed, and utterly infuriated by his new superior—but as the case unfolds and he watches Ana’s mind leap from one startling deduction to the next, he must admit that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

By an “endlessly inventive” (Vulture) author with a “wicked sense of humor” (NPR), The Tainted Cup mixes the charms of detective fiction with brilliant world-building to deliver a fiendishly clever mystery that’s at once instantly recognizable and thrillingly new.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

The definitive, no-holds-barred oral history of 1990s alt-rock festival Lollapalooza―told by the musicians, roadies, and industry insiders who lived it. From the New York Times bestselling authors of Nothin’ But A Good Time.

In Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival, New York Times bestselling authors Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour tell the no-holds-barred history of the iconic music festival. Through hundreds of new interviews with artists, tour founders, festival organizers, promoters, publicists, sideshow freaks, stage crews, record label execs, reporters, roadies and more, Lollapalooza chronicles the tour’s pioneering 1991-1997 run, and, in the process, alternative rock’s rise – as well as the reverberations that led to a massive shift in the music industry and the culture at large.

Lollapalooza features original interviews with some of the biggest names in music, including Perry Farrell and Jane’s Addiction, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails, Sonic Youth, Tool, Smashing Pumpkins, Ice-T, Rage Against the Machine, Green Day, Patti Smith, Alice in Chains, Metallica and many more.

Conceived by Farrell as a farewell tour for Jane’s Addiction, Lollapalooza’s inaugural outing across the U.S. in the summer of 1991 helped to coalesce an ideology and aesthetic that not only washed over popular music but seeped into fashion, film, television, literature, food, politics and more. Throughout the decade, Lollapalooza offered a vast and diverse ensemble of bands, breaking barriers of genre and uniting alternative rock, heavy metal, punk, hip-hop, industrial, goth, avant-garde, spoken word, electronic dance music and other styles under one big tent, and setting the template for the modern American music festival and the scores of other contemporary destination fests that are now an integral part of how audiences experience live music.

Richard Bienstock is a journalist whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Billboard, Spin, and other publications. He is a former senior editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored and co-authored several books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck. He is also the New York Times bestselling co-author of Nothin’ But a Good Time.

Tom Beaujour is a journalist as well as a co-founder and former editor-in-chief of Revolver, America’s premier hard rock and heavy metal monthly. Beaujour has produced and mixed albums by Nada Surf, Guided by Voices, the Juliana Hatfield Three, and many others. He is also the New York Times bestselling co-author of Nothin’ But a Good Time.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Tuesday the 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-25/richard-bienstock-and-tom-beaujour-conversation-daniel-kohn-discuss-lollapalooza 

The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rick Lupert & Guest Ted Burke – Online Zoom Event

Cobalt Poets Reading & Open Mic and host Rick Lupert welcomes guest Ted Burke to read and discuss his work.

Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event

Date: Tuesday, the 25^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Address: Online event (see site)

Website: https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com

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.

Hosted by Ashley August.

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 11^th, March 18^th & March 25^th!

Where: Greenway Court Theatre at ORA

Date: Tuesday, the 25^th

Time: 9 pm – 11 pm

Address: 4332 Degnan Blvd., Leimert Park, Los Angeles, CA 90008

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChLUBSRPCFb/  or https://www.dapoetrylounge.com/events/

Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Conference 2025 at Los Angeles Convention Center – In-Person Event

The 2025 AWP Conference & Bookfair is the essential gathering for writers, teachers, students, editors, and publishers. Join thousands of attendees, explore hundreds of events and exhibitors, and immerse in four days of vital literary community and celebration in Los Angeles!

Many literary events are offered this week, whether on-site, virtual, or at various locations throughout the region, to celebrate the literary community and its works. Some require advance registration and others are FREE and open to all.

Celebrate writers and the written word!

Contact Information:

Registration

registration@awpwriter.org

(240) 696-8273

Conference Events

events@awpwriter.org

(240) 696-8250

Bookfair

bookfairservices@awpwriter.org

(240) 696-7741

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: L.A. Convention Center

Date: Wednesday, the 26^th (through the 29^th)

Time: Wednesday check-in; Thursday-Saturday: 9 am – 5 pm 

Address: 1201 South Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, California 90015

Website: https://awpwriter.org/AWP/AWP/Conference-Bookfair/Overview.aspx

Mystery Book Club: The Violin Conspiracy at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss the book outside of the shop in the circle in front of Star Cafe. You may still email your thoughts to share with our club if you are unable to attend in-person.

Participants will discuss the novel, The Violin Conspiracy by author Brendan Slocumb.

Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. But Ray has a gift and a dream—he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music.

When he discovers that his beat-up, family fiddle is a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach, and together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition—the Olympics of classical music—the violin is stolen, a ransom note for five million dollars left in its place. Without it, Ray feels like he’s lost a piece of himself. As the competition approaches, Ray must not only reclaim his precious violin but prove to himself—and the world—that whatever the outcome, there has always been a truly great musician within him.

Where: Once Upon a Time

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 9 am

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/mystery-book-group-violin-conspiracy-brendan-slocumb

Wednesday Book Club: Death with Interruptions at Westchester – Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Even

Please join the Wednesday Book Club to discuss Death with Interruptions by José Saramago.

New members welcome!

Where: Westchester – Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 12 pm

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

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/wednesday-book-club-17

Book Discussion: The Bird Way at Sunland – Tujunga Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us for this community-led book discussion of The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think by Jennifer Ackerman.

Where: Sunland – Tujunga Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 1 pm

Address: 1771 Foothill Blvd., Tujunga, CA 91042

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 26^th

Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm

Address: On-air Event (live)

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

Author Talk: Jennifer Weiner via Virtual Program, LACL – Online Event

You’re invited to a glimmering conversation with bestselling author Jennifer Weiner. Hearing from the queen of fun herself as we chat about the emotional depth of her bestselling novels.

We’ll chat with the author about her New York Times bestselling novels, Good In Bed, In Her Shoes, Big Summer, The Breakaway and many more.

Additionally, in a special preview, Weiner will briefly discuss her forthcoming novel (due out on April 8, 2025) The Griffin Sister’s Greatest Hits. Set in the world of pop music, The Griffin Sister’s Greatest Hits is about sisters, motherhood, young love, and the dreams we chase.

About the Author: Jennifer Weiner is a New York Times bestselling author whose books have spent over five years on the New York Times bestseller list, with more than 11 million copies in print in 36 countries. She is the author of the novels Good in Bed (2001) and In Her Shoes (2002), which was turned into a major motion picture starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine. And the author of That Summer (2021); The Breakaway (2024); and The Griffin Sisters’ Greatest Hits (forthcoming 2025) . She is also the author of The Littlest Bigfoot middle-grade trilogy, Her nonfiction collection Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing (2016), was a finalist for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.

Where: Virtual Program, LACL

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 4 pm – 5 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

This event is supported by the Teaching, Learning, and Campus Life Committee of Pitzer College.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Pitzer College, Broad Center Performance Space

Date: Wednesday, the 26^th

Time: 4:30 pm – 6 pm

Address: 120 W Bonita Ave., Claremont, CA 91711 

Website: https://www.pitzer.edu/events/poetry-reading-mai-der-vang

Book Club: The Council of Dolls at Montebello Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for a special Women’s History Month discussion on the novel, The Council of Dolls, by Mona Susan Power. There are copies available at the Circulation Desk upon request.

Where: Montebello Library, LACL

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

Address: 1550 W Beverly Blvd., Montebello, CA 90640 

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13024335

Science Fiction Book Club: Neuromancer at Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join our Science Fiction Book Club where Neuromancer by William Gibson will be discussed. Copies are available at the library.

Synopsis: Case is a washed-up hacker. He meets a mysterious new employer who offers him a last-chance run at a powerful artificial intelligence system.

Where: Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

Address: 6250 Sylmar Ave., Van Nuys, CA 91401 

Where: Valley Plaza Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 6 pm – 7:15 pm

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

Eunice Hunton Carter pivotal role in convicting notorious mobster Charles “Lucky” Luciano. This compelling biography sheds light on her groundbreaking legal career, her struggle against systemic racism, and her contributions to shaping American law.

Light refreshments will be provided. Copies of Invisible are available to check out at the Circulation Desk.

Where: Topanga Library, LACL

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: 122 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, CA 90290

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13083845

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 26^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

POETS:

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants raised in San Gabriel, California. She is a former Steinbeck fellow, Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange poetry winner, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund/Money for Women grantee, Los Angeles Central Library ALOUD newer poet, Macondo Scholar at Community of Writers, and her poetry received 3rd place in the 2015 Tucson Festival of Books literary awards. She is the author of the poetry collections Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications 2016) and Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites (Mouthfeel Press 2023).

Luivette Resto is an award-winning poet, a mother of three revolutionary humans, and a middle school English teacher. She was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, and was proudly raised in the Bronx, New York. She is a CantoMundo and Macondo Fellow. Her books of poetry include Unfinished Portrait (2008) and Ascension (2013), both published by Tía Chucha Press, as well as Living on Islands Not Found on Maps (FlowerSong Press, 2022).

Matt Sedillo is a political poet, born and raised in El Sereno, Los Ángeles, California. He is the author of two poetry collections, plus the forthcoming Mexican Style (FlowerSong, 2025).

Angelina Sáenz writes to remember, to name, and to heal. Sáenz grew up in Silverlake, Los Angeles, during the 1970s and 1980s but considers the corridor from West Hollywood to downtown Los Angeles her childhood stomping grounds. She fondly recalls neighborhood kids walking or taking the bus up and down Sunset Boulevard. The daughter of a single mother and Mexican immigrant, Sáenz was surrounded by the challenges of violence, addiction, incarceration, the loss of loved ones, and the mental health needs of a deeply traumatized community. Sáenz is the author of Maestra (FlowerSong Press, 2024) and Edgecliff (FlowerSong Press, 2021).

Melinda Palacio is an award-winning poet and author from South-Central Los Angeles. She studied Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley and earned a graduate degree in the same field at UC Santa Cruz. She is a 2007 PEN USA Emerging Voices Rosenthal Fellow and an alum of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. In 2009, Bilingual Press accepted her novel manuscript, Ocotillo Dreams, for publication. Tia Chucha Press published first full-length poetry manuscript, How Fire Is A Story, Waiting in 2012. She lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Vickie Vértiz is an award-winning Mexican American poet, writer, and professor whose work has appeared in the New York Times magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Her book Palm Frond with Its Throat Cut won the 2018 PEN America literary prize in poetry. A graduate of Williams College, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of California, Riverside, she teaches in the Writing Program at UC Santa Barbara.

Antonieta Villamil is an international award winning bilingual poet with over 11 published books that brings a cross-cultural experience, performing her poetry in a reading and singing dynamic fusion. She focuses her writing on the forgotten ones and honors them with a persistence that compels us to hear their voices.

Luis J. Rodriguez is theson of Mexican immigrants. He began writing in his early teens and has won national recognition as a poet, journalist, fiction writer, children’s book writer, and critic. Rodriguez helped create Tia Chucha’s, a multiarts, multimedia cultural center in the Northeast San Fernando Valley. He is the author of the memoirs Always Running and It Calls You Back.

Hosts: Rey M. Rodríguez and Jorge H. Rodríguez.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: LA Plaza de Cultural Y Artes

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

Address: 501 N. Main St., Los Angeles, CA 90012

Orchid Tierney (Calimari)

[name of author] (Sublunary/ITC)

Alvin Lu (FC2)

Michael Holt (Sublunary)

Vik Shirley (Sublunary)

Alina Stefanescu (Sarabande)

Emilio Carrero (Calamari)

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Stories Books & Café

Date: Wednesday, the 26^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://storiesla.com

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

In honor of Women’s History Month, join us to discuss Phoenix Unbound by Grace Draven. Copies available at Customer Service. For adults.

Every year, each village is required to send a young woman to the Empire’s capital her fate: to be burned alive for the entertainment of the masses. For the last five years, one small village’s tithe has been the same woman. Gilene’s sacrifice protects all the other young women of her village, and her secret to staying alive lies with the magic only she possesses. But this year is different. Azarion, the Empire’s most famous gladiator, has somehow seen through her illusion, and is set on blackmailing Gilene into using her abilities to help him escape his life of slavery. To protect her family and village, she will risk everything to return to the Empire and burn once more.

Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12893212

Mystery &Thriller Book Club: Traitors Gate at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join our Book Club to discuss Traitors Gate by Jefffrey Archer. Copies are available at the library.

RSVP:

Please email studio@lapl.org for details.

Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 6:30 pm

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

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

AWP Offsite Event: I Blame Television Reading Series at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event

Hosted by writer and critic Elizabeth Teets, I Blame Television brings together authors of all genres for a unique reading that combines the low and high brow to celebrate their favorite bits of pop culture.

This AWP Off Site Edition features readings by Alvina Chamberland, Chloe Caldwell, Jen Winston, Francesca Lia Block, Brian Getsco and Elizabeth Teets.

NOTE: RSVP at website link.

Where: Chevalier’s Books

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004

Website: https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/event/2025-03-26/i-blame-television-pop-culture-reading-series

Author Event: Mark Sundeen, with Michael Scoot Moore, & Delusions and Grandeur: Dreamers of the New West at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event

Mark Sundeen, in conversation with Michael Scott Moore, will celebrate and discuss his new book, Delusions and Grandeur: Dreamers of the New West.

In these new and selected essays, Mark Sundeen recounts two decades of political activism, outdoor exploration, and empathetic curiosity. He was both witness to and active participant in pivotal cultural and political events of the new millennium, from Howard Dean’s presidential campaign to the Iraq War protests to the NoDAPL uprising in Standing Rock. But what brings these large phenomena into humanistic focus is the cast of idiosyncratic people he meets. Using first-person reportage, well-crafted storytelling, and wry, self-deprecating humor, Sundeen’s keen observations illustrate what everyday life is like for people in the contemporary American West, with all their systemic precarities and individual triumphs.

Mark Sundeen is the author of four other books about the American West: The Unsettlers, Car Camping, The Making of Toro, and The Man Who Quit Money, which was a national bestseller and has been translated into six languages. A contributing editor for Outside Magazine, his work has appeared in the New York Times, National Geographic Adventure, The Believer, and Best American Essays. He is associate professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Montana. Before that, he held the Russo Chair in Creative Writing at University of New Mexico.

Michael Scott Moore is a journalist and novelist who divides his time between LA and Berlin. He’s written for The New Yorker and The Atlantic and he’s the author, most recently, of THE DESERT AND THE SEA, about his time as a hostage of Somali pirates. His travel book about surfing, SWEETNESS AND BLOOD, a travel book about surfing, and TOO MUCH OF NOTHING, a novel set in a fictional surf town.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/2025-03-26/special-author-event-mark-sundeen

TICKETED EVENT: Sloane Crosley, with Alex Edelman, & Grief Is for People at Book Soup Off-site at Zipper Hall – In-Person Event

Sloane Crosley, in conversation with Alex Edelman, will discuss and sign her memoir, Grief Is for People.

Disarmingly witty and poignant, Sloane Crosley’s memoir explores multiple kinds of loss following the death of her closest friend.

How do we live without the ones we love? After the pain and confusion of losing her closest friend to suicide, Sloane Crosley looks for answers in philosophy and art, hoping for a framework more useful than the unavoidable stages of grief.

For most of her adult life, Sloane and Russell worked together and played together as they navigated the corridors of office life, the literary world, and the dramatic cultural shifts in New York City. One day, Sloane’s apartment is broken into. Along with her most prized possessions, the thief makes off with her sense of security, leaving a mystery in its place.

When Russell dies exactly one month later, his death propels Sloane on a wild quest to right the unrightable, to explore what constitutes family and possession as the city itself faces the staggering toll of the pandemic.

Sloane Crosley’s search for truth is frank, wickedly funny, and gilded with resounding empathy. Upending the “grief memoir,” Grief Is for People is a story of the struggle to hold on to the past without being consumed by it. A contemporary elegy, it rises to console and challenge our notions of mourning during these grief-stricken times.

NOTE: See site for tickets and details.

Where: Zipper Hall, The Colburn School

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 200 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90031

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/sloane-crosley-2025

Verse 4 Verse Poetry Open Mic at Heavy Manners Library – In-Person Event

Verse for Verse is a poetry open mic hosted by Karla Lamb.

R U a chaotic conference king, an alt. lit rebel babe, or a bookfair bestie? Then AWP’s only Queer off-site open mic is 4 U! new words {press} & Verse4Verse R serving up a legendary night of Trans & Queer poetry.

Featuring: Raquel Gutiérrez, Skye Jackson, Farrah Fang, Rose Jenny, & nw{p}’s own Brooklyn Baggett! It’s called range, honey!nw{p} is a non-profit poetry press dedicated to elevating trans* & gender-expansive voices. V4V, winner of Sapphic LA’s Best Open Mic award, is a bi-monthly Sapphic & Queer poetry event. This is their first collab.

Raquel Gutiérrez is a bilingual writer, poet, and critic, author of Brown Neon and recipient of the 2023 Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction, with upcoming works including Southwest Reconstruction (Fall 2025), and fellowships from United States Artists and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

Skye Jackson’s poetry has been published in RHINO, Palette Poetry, and The Southern Review, and she is the recipient of the AWP Intro Journals Award, with her debut collection Libre published by Regalo Press.

Farrah Fang, a Houston native and advocate for Trans liberation, is the author of Quererme En La Luz (Abode Press), a Tin House Scholar, and a Pushcart Prize nominee.

Rose Jenny, a trans writer/performer in Florida, is the author of My Apocrypha (Bottlecap Press) and has been published in SWWIM, Santa Fe Writers Project Quarterly, and others; she is also a Michener Fellow pursuing an MFA at the University of Miami.

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

Where: Heavy Manners Library

Date: Wednesday, the 26^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/verse-4-verse-poetry-open-mic-326-tickets-1269544655239?aff=erelexpmlt

AWP Offsite Event: Nightboat Books 10^th Anniversary Reading at Poetic Research Bureau – In-Person Event

The Poetic Research Bureau presents a group reading for Nightboat Books, since so many writers are visiting Los Angeles for the AWP conference and bookfair.

Participating writers include: Aurora Mattia, Brian Blanchfield, Brian Teare, Camille Roy, Christopher Soto, Dior J. Stephens, Emily Lee Luan, Gillian Conoley, imogen xtian smith, Jzl Jmz, Muriel Leung, Ronaldo V. Wilson, Rosamond S King, Rosie Stockton, Samiya Bashir, TC Tolbert, Tiff Dressen and Wo Chan.

NOTE: RSVP at website link.

Where: Poetic Research Bureau

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 7 pm

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

Website: https://www.poeticresearch.com/events/nightboat-books-20th-anniversary

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 26^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: Kristen Arnett, with Guests, & Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One at Skylight – In-Person Event

Kristen Arnett, in conversation with special guests,will discuss Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things, a sparkling and funny new novel of entertainment, ambition, art, and love.

Cherry Hendricks might be down on her luck, but she can write the book on what makes something funny: she’s a professional clown who creates raucous, zany fun at gigs all over Orlando. Between her clowning and her shifts at an aquarium store for extra cash, she’s always hustling. Not to mention balancing her judgmental mother, her messy love life, and her equally messy community of fellow performers.

Things start looking up when Cherry meets Margot the Magnificent—a much older lesbian magician—who seems to have worked out the lines between art, business, and life, and has a slick, successful career to prove it. With Margot’s mentorship and industry connections, Cherry is sure to take her art to the next level.

Equal parts bravado, tenderness, and humor, and bursting with misfits, magicians, musicians, and mimes, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One is a masterpiece of comedic fiction that asks big questions about art and performance, friendship and community, and the importance of timing in jokes and in life.

Kristen Arnett is the queer Floridian author of With Teeth: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2021) which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction and the New York Times bestselling debut novel Mostly Dead Things (Tin House, 2019) which was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction and was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. She runs the substack “Dad Lessons.” Her work has appeared at The New York Times, TIME, Vogue, The Cut, Oprah Magazine, Guernica, Buzzfeed, McSweeney’s, PBS Newshour, The Guardian, Salon, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. Her next novel, STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE, about a lesbian birthday party clown, will be published by Riverhead Books (March 2025), followed by the publication of an untitled collection of short stories. She has a Masters in Library and Information Science from Florida State University and lives in Orlando, Florida.

FEATURED GUESTS:

T Kira Māhealani Madden is a diasporic Kanaka ‘Ōiwi (Native Hawaiian) writer, photographer, and amateur magician. She is the Founding Editor of No Tokens, and the author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls (Bloomsbury, 2019). Her debut novel, Whidbey, is forthcoming with Mariner, HarperCollins.

Morgan Parker is a poet, essayist, and novelist. She is the author of the young adult novel Who Put This Song On?; and the poetry collections Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé, and Magical Negro, which won the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, winner of a Pushcart Prize, and has been hailed by The New York Times as “a dynamic craftsperson” of “considerable consequence to American poetry.” Parker’s debut book of nonfiction, You Get What You Pay For, was published March 12, 2024.

Isle McElroy is a writer based in Brooklyn. Their debut novel, The Atmospherians, was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Their second novel, People Collide, was New York Times Critics’ Pick. Other writing appears in The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, The Cut, Vulture, GQ, Vogue, The Atlantic, Tin House, and elsewhere. Isle was named one of The Strand’s 30 Writers to Watch.

Vanessa Chan is the Malaysian author of the internationally bestselling novel THE STORM WE MADE, a Good Morning America Book Club Pick, BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick, New York Times Editors’ Choice, and named best book of the year by Amazon, Elle, Goodreads, Crimereads, Debutiful, and more — about the unlikeliest of spies — a discontent mother and wife in 1930s British Malaya who, in becoming a spy for the Japanese, unwittingly ushers in the most violent war her country has ever seen. The Storm We Made will be translated into more than twenty languages worldwide. Her other work has been published in Vogue, Esquire, and more. She grew up in Malaysia and is now based mostly in Brooklyn.

Alissa Nutting is a novelist, screenwriter, and showrunner, most recently of the Adult Swim & MAX animated series Teenage Euthanasia.

Where: Skylight

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 7 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-kristen-arnett-presents-stop-me-if-youve-heard-one-w-special-guests

AWP Off-site Event: 826LA Benefit Reading at Time Travel Mart, Echo Park – In-Person Event

Join us this upcoming Wednesday, March 26th from 7-9 pm at Echo Park for a special AWP reading benefiting 826LA!

Come celebrate the power of storytelling with acclaimed writers and support creative writing programs for LA’s youth. All proceeds go to 826LA’s free programs, helping nurture the next generation of authors. 📚 #826LA #AWPReading #SupportYoungAuthors #echoparkevents

Raffle and light refreshments!

NOTE: See site for RSVP, list of readers, and details.

Where: Time Travel Mart in Echo Park

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 1714 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHez9-my2bK/

Women’s Fiction Reading Group: James at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Vroman’s Fiction Reading Group meets the 4th Wednesday of every month at 7 pm.

This event is free and open to the public.

March’s pick is James by Percival Everett.

Fiction Reading Group meetings are held in the Vroman’s Meeting Room, located in the Atrium next door. 709 E. Colorado Blvd. Suite 120.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s Meeting Room in the Atrium, Suite 120

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-26/vromans-fiction-reading-group

Silvia Park, with Jonny Sun, & Luminous at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Silvia Park, in conversation with Jonny Sun, will discuss Luminous.

This highly anticipated, sweeping debut set in a unified Korea tells the story of three estranged siblings—two human, one robot—as they collide against the backdrop of a murder investigation to settle old scores and make sense of their shattered childhood.

“I once had a family. At least, the earliest version of me had a family.”

In a reunified Korea of the near future, the sun beats down on a junkyard filled with abandoned robots, broken down for parts. Eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through the scraps, searching for a piece that might support her failing body. There among the piles of trash, something catches her eye: a robot boy—so lifelike and strange, unlike anything she’s ever seen before.

Siblings Jun and Morgan haven’t spoken for years. When they were children, their brother Yoyo disappeared suddenly, leaving behind only distant memories of his laughter and near-human warmth. Yoyo—an early prototype of a humanoid robot designed by their father—was always bound for something darker and more complex. Now Morgan makes robots for a living and is on the verge of losing control of her most important creation. Jun is a detective with the Robot Crimes Unit whose investigation is digging up truths that want to stay buried. And whether they like it or not, Ruijie’s discovery will thrust their family back together in ways they could have never imagined.

At once a thrilling work of speculative fiction and a poignant exploration of what it really means to be human, Luminous is an unforgettably brilliant debut.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Wednesday the 26^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-26/silvia-park-conversation-jonny-sun-discusses-luminous

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 — Shooting Stars at the Sky release (Mama’s Kitchen Press);
• 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 26^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm

Address: 4321 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008

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

Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop with Tom Laichas at Beyond Baroque – Online Event 

The West Coast’s longest-running free poetry workshop is offered by Beyond Baroque on Zoom and welcomes new and seasoned poets to share their work and provide feedback. Please be prepared to share one poem. This workshop will be hosted via the Zoom video-conferencing platform. Please be prepared to share one poem.

Please spend some time before the workshop learning how to share documents via Zoom. It will keep the session moving if you’re able to make your poem viewable quickly and easily. An instructive video is available at the site.

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

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 26^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 26^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 Christina Brown 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 Christina Brown.

Christina Brown is a poet and podcaster living in Long Beach, CA. She is the cohost of The Bi Pod: A Queer Podcast. Her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Press, A Moon of One’s Own, The Sunshine Lounge, Ink & Marrow, and other venues. In her free time, you’ll find her reading niche non-fiction books, trying not to kill her houseplants, and never getting over anything. She is the author of two poetry collections, Girl Teeth (innateDIVINITYpress) and The Ways I Tried to Call You Home (DoubleText Media).

$4 cover fee, cash only

NOTE: See site for further details.

Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange

Date: Wednesday, the 26^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

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

Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/607635618529132

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.

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 27^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/1880320250327

Afternoon Book Club: Turning to Stone at Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rock by Marcia Bjornerud. For adults.

Summary provided by the publisher:

“Earth has been reinventing itself for more than four billion years, keeping a record of its experiments in the form of rocks. Yet most of us live our lives on the planet with no idea of its extraordinary history, unable to interpret the language of the rocks that surround us. Geologist Marcia Bjornerud believes that our lives can be enriched by understanding our heritage on this old and creative planet. Contrary to their reputation, rocks have eventful lives–and they intersect with our own in surprising ways. In Turning to Stone, Bjornerud reveals how rocks are the hidden infrastructure that keep the planet functioning, from sandstone aquifers purifying the water we drink to basalt formations slowly regulating global climate.”

Where: Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 12 pm – 1 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12867700

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

This month, we’ll explore The Power, by Naomi Alderman. In this sci-fi/speculative novel explores a world where women develop the ability to generate electric shocks, leading to a dramatic shift in gender power dynamics. For adults.

Where: Marina del Rey Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12982892

Eagle Rock Book Club: The Vanishing Half at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss The Vanishing Half by author Brit Bennett, which follows twins Stella and Desiree. They run away from their small, southern black town as teens, and lead very different lives as adults. One sister lives with her black daughter in the hometown she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her husband knows nothing of her past. The twins’ fates remain intertwined, however, when their daughters’ lives intersect.

Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 3 pm

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

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

AWP Off-site Event: Friends of Friends: A Poetry Reading at Edendale Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us for Friends of Friends, a reading by a stellar lineup of poets from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs 2025 conference. Jared Stanley, creative writing instructor at the University of Nevada at Reno, presents noted poets from across North America including: Nathan Hoks, Erik Manuel Soto, Sara Wainscott and Sheryda Warrener. We’ll be taking an adventurous look at relationships: between humans, between rocks, between language, and just between.

Email eden@lapl.org for more information.

Where: Edendale Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 4 pm

Address: 2011 W, Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/friends-friends-poetry-reading

Her Story, Our Voices: A Zine-Making Workshop at Baldwin Hills Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us for a zine-making workshop celebrating Women’s History Month! Highlight and honor the resilience, achievements, and contributions of women throughout history and today. Supplies will be provided!

Where: Baldwin Hills Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 4 pm

Address: 2906 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90016

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/her-story-our-voices-zine-making-workshop

Between the Lines Book Club: The Fury at Castaic Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss The Fury by author Alex Michaelides. For Adults.

This story is about a reclusive ex-movie star and her famous friends whose spontaneous trip to a private Greek island is upended by a murder.

Where: Castaic Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12893372

Heart and Hand Book Talk with Steve Leder via Virtual Program, LACL – In-Person Event

Join Rabbi Steve Leder, author of The Beauty of What Remains and For You When I Am Gone, and LA County Librarian Skye Patrick as they discuss navigating life’s biggest challenges with wisdom, compassion, and hope.

Steve Leder, Rabbi Emeritus with the Wilshire Boulevard Temple and author of several books, including The Beauty of What Remains and For You When I’m Gone, has spent decades guiding his community through joy, hardship, and all the changes we face in life. He joins us to talk about finding beauty and hope in the face of those changes and challenges – be they inside our families, out in our communities, or a part of the wider world.

Steve is the Rabbi Emeritus of Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles, where he has served for over two decades. He is a recognized leader, writer, and speaker whose work has been featured in The Los Angeles Times, TIME, The Today Show, NPR, and CNN. With his heartfelt reflections on faith, love, and personal growth, he continues to inspire readers and audiences worldwide. Newsweek Magazine twice named him one of the ten most influential rabbis in America but most important to Steve is being Betsy’s husband and Aaron and Hannah’s dad.

Where: Virtual Program, LACL

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13054102

Marina del Rey Book Club: The Power at Marina del Rey Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join participants to discuss The Power by Naomi Alderman.

In this sci-fi/speculative novel explores a world where women develop the ability to generate electric shocks, leading to a dramatic shift in gender power dynamics. For adults.

Where: Lloyd Taber-Marina del Rey Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12982891

Sci-Fi Short Story Club: Johnny Mnemonic with Emily Rauber Rodriguez at Mark Twain Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event

Explore William Gibson’s 1981 data-smuggling short story Johnny Mnemonic with sci-fi lovers from across the universe via Zoom. This month’s reading was selected by Emily Rauber Rodriguez, co-curator of the Academy Museum’s Cyberpunk: Envisioning Possible Futures Through Cinema, who will join us for this discussion.

Johnny Mnemonic is available in print, eBook, and Book on CD from LAPL.

RSVP:

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

Where: Mark Twain Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 6 pm

Address: 9621 S. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90003

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/sci-fi-short-story-club-johnny-mnemonic-william-gibson-emily-rauber-rodriguez

Cover to Cover Book Club: The Covenant of Water at Mid-Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Join us for a discussion of the monthly book selection.

March 27: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

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

Where: Mid-Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 6 pm

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

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

AWP Offsite Event: In Community: A Reading with Glass Lyre Press Poets at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event

Organized by Amy Small-McKinney and Connie Post.

Featuring:

Co-hosts Scott Ferry and Jessica L. Walsh.

Julie Babcock is a poet and fiction writer who teaches in an interdisciplinary writing program at University of Michigan. Her hybrid poetry collection, Rules for Rearrangement, won the 2019 Kithara Book Prize and was released November 2020. She is also the author of Autoplay, described as both an ode and an elegy to her Midwestern upbringing.

Josh Davis N/A

Peggy Dobreer is a poet and master teacher, an explorer of experiential modalities, a builder of incubators, a generator, a lab rat. Dobreer is founder and curator of Slow Lightning Lit, and editor of Slow Lightning: Impractical Poetry and Slow Lightning: Astonished Poetry. She is the author of three published collections: Forbidden Plums: Poems in Quarantine 2021, Glass Lyre Press, Drop and Dazzle 2018 and In the Lake of Your Bones 2012, with Moon Tide Pres.

Dina Elenbogen is author of the poetry collections, Apples of the Earth, and Shore and the memoir, Drawn from Water. The recipient of fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council and the Ragdale Foundation, her work has appeared in anthologies and magazines including Fury, City of the Big Shoulders, Beyond Lament, Lit Hub, Bellevue Literary Review, Brevity, Prairie Schooner, Woven Tale Press, Patterson Literary Review, Connecticut River Review, New City Chicago, and other venues.

Lois P. Jones won the 2023 Alpine Poetry Fellowship. Her Highly Commended poem was published in the 2021 Bridport Poetry Prize anthology. In collaboration with filmmaker Jutta Pryor and sound designer Peter Verwimp, her poem La Scapigliata won the 2022 Lyra Bristol Poetry Film Ekphrastic Competition. She was a winning finalist for the 2018 Terrain Poetry Contest judged by Jane Hirshfield. Jone’s first poetry collection is Night Ladder.

Anna Leahy is a poet and nonfiction writer. The author of numerous books of poetry, essays, and creative writing pedagogy, Leahy directs the Tabula Poetica Center for Poetry and MFA in Creative Writing program at Chapman University in Orange.

Annette Sisson lives in Nashville, TN, with her partner, Jimmy Davis, and their two dogs, Jasper and Cora. Annette and Jimmy are both university professors; they have three children, all adults, two daughters-in-law, and one adorable grandson, making her a “Nana.” Sisson’s first book is Small Fish in High Branches (Glass Lyre Press, 2022) and her second Winter Sharp with Apples (2024).

Jennifer K. Sweeny is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Foxlogic, Fireweed, winner of the Backwaters Prize from Backwaters Press/University of Nebraska. Her other collections are Little Spells (New Issues Press, 2015), How to Live on Bread and Music (Perugia Press), and Salt Memory (Main Street Rag). She is the recipient of many awards, including the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Perugia Press Prize, and a Pushcart Prize.  She teaches poetry workshops at the University of Redlands in California, and is known for a decade-long practice of private instruction and manuscript critique.

RSVP

Where: Chevalier’s

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 6 pm

Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004 

Website: https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/event/2025-03-27/community-reading-glass-lyre-press-poets

AWP Off-site Event: Reading with Nightboat Book Authors at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event

Featuring:

Aditi Machado

Aurora Mattia

Bianca Rae Messinger

Dawn Lundy Martin

Eleni Stecopoulos

Funto Omojola

Joyelle McSweeney

Julian Carter

Jzl Jmz

Laura Moriarty

Marcus Clayton

Mónica de la Torre

Nat Raha

Rosie Stockton

Samiya Bashir

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Stories Books & Café

Date: Thursday, the 27^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://storiesla.com

AWP Off-site Panel: What Books Press & Friends: Beyond Baroque, El Martillo, Giant Claw, Tia Chucha’s & Walton Well Presses at Telescope Studios – In-Person Event

See site for list of artists and details.

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

Where: Telescope Studios

Date: Thursday, the 27^th

Time: 6 pm – 10 pm

Address: 2125 Bay St., Los Angeles, CA 90021

Website: https://www.whatbookspress.com/eventsnews/an-evening-with-new-authors-from-what-books-pressgiant-claw

Cookies & Cream Graphic Novel Book Club at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event

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

This month, we’ll discuss Dracula, Motherf**ker! (2020) by Alex De Campi and illustrated by Erica Henderson. Vienna, 1889: Dracula’s brides nail him to the bottom of his coffin. Los Angeles, 1974: an aging starlet decides to raise the stakes. Crime scene photographer Quincy Harker is the only man who knows it happened, but will anyone believe him before he gets his own chalk outline? You can grab this title on Hoopla with your library card.

The intended audience for this monthly Zoom event is teens aged 16+ and adults.

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/cookies-comics-graphic-novel-book-club-8

Graphic Novel Book Club for Adults: Persepolis at Northridge Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join volunteer Reyna for the first meeting of our Graphic Novel Book Club for Adults! We’ll be discussing Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi! The club will meet on the fourth Thursday of every month at 6:30 p.m.

The intended audience for this monthly Zoom event is teens aged 16+ and adults.

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: 9051 Darby Ave., Northridge, CA 91325

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

Carson Meyer, with Bonnie Wright & Growing Together: Doula Wisdom & Holistic Practices for Pregnancy, Birth & Early Motherhood at Deisel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event

A week-by-week pregnancy and birthing guide from renowned Hollywood doula Carson Meyer—brimming with empowering advice to help expectant mothers care for their bodies, nurture their babies, and make confident decisions throughout pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.

In this groundbreaking pregnancy book, Carson Meyer draws on her experience as a birth doula helping hundreds of families welcome their babies into the world. With a holistic focus on wellness, health, and spirituality, Growing Together offers birthing parents an empowering approach to pregnancy and childbirth that is too often missing in today’s standard care.

This is a weekly guide to caring for and honoring your body and your baby through every phase of the life-changing experience of becoming a parent—from the first positive pregnancy test through the fourth trimester. Featuring easy-to-follow guidance and illuminating information to help you feel informed, confident, and calm.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: 225 26^th St., Santa Monica, CA 990402

Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Carson-Meyer-March-27-Author-signing

Beyond the Page: Dark Soil at Pico House, Chinese American Museum – In-Person Event

Join the Chinese American Museum for a discussion on Dark Soil: Fictions & Mythographies, an anthology that digs deep into the racial and ecological landscapes of America and its borderlands. Tune in to hear contributing book authors Karen Tei Yamashita, Ronaldo V. Wilson, Sesshu Foster, and Angie Sijun Lou explore the power of storytelling, highlight the importance of amplifying marginalized voices, and seek ways to reckon with America’s past.

Register today at camla.org/darksoil.

Bonus: Buy a signed copy of Dark Soil at the event!

About the Panelists:

Karen Tei Yamashita is the author of nine books, including I Hotel, a National Book Award finalist, and Sansei and Sensibility, both published by Coffee House Press. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation, the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, and a U.S. Artists’ Ford Foundation Fellowship. Yamashita is a professor emerita of literature and creative writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Ronaldo V. Wilson is an award-winning poet, interdisciplinary artist, academic, and the author of six collections that blend poetry, fiction, hybrid theory, performance, and visual art. He is a Professor of Creative Writing and Literature at UC Santa Cruz.

Sesshu Foster is a poet, teacher, and community activist from East Los Angeles. His recent works include City of the Future and ELADATL: The History of the East Los Angeles Dirigible Air Transport Lines, a novel co-authored with artist Arturo Ernesto Romo. Foster is the 2024 winner of the George Drury Smith Award in Poetry from the Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center.

About the Moderator:

Angie Sijun Lou is a Kundiman Fellow and a Ph.D. candidate in literature and creative writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her essays and criticism have been published in the American Poetry Review, the Georgia Review, and Amerasia Journal. She currently lives in Oakland.

Where: Pico House

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

Address: 424 N. Main St., Los Angeles, CA 90012

Website: https://camla.org/upcoming-events/ or https://www.instagram.com/p/DHRnar7yc85fat2K3F4T9xTp-WqXBPpK7L_wSk0/?hl=en

Lit Angels: How to Solve the Mysteries of the Plot with Steve Almond at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Lit Angels: How to Solve the Mysteries of the Plot is a writing workshop with author Steve Almond.

It took Steve Almond 30 years, and five failed efforts, to publish his first novel, All the Secrets of the World. For Steve, writing “Secrets” unlocked the mysteries of plot that had eluded him for decades: effective narration, strong scenes, round characters, rising action, and how to manage chronology. In this fast-paced and informal class, we’ll dig into how to solve all the major plot issues that arise, whether you’re working on a novel, a memoir, a short story, or essay.

About the instructor:

Steve Almond is the author of a dozen books, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. His first novel, Which Brings Me to You (co-written with Julianna Baggott) is now a major motion picture starring Lucy Hale. His second novel, All the Secrets of the World is in development at 20th Century Fox. He’s the recipient of an NEA grant for 2022 and teaches at Harvard. His work has been published in venues ranging from the Best American Short Stories and the Best American Mysteries to the New York Times Magazine. He lives outside Boston with his family and his anxiety.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

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

Acre Books Showcase: Author Readings at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

CD Eskilson is a trans nonbinary poet and translator. They are a recipient of the C.D. Wright / Academy of American Poets Prize, and their work appears in the Kenyon Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, the Offing, Passages North, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and others. They were once in a punk band.

Jose Hernandez Diaz is the author of The Fire Eater and the forthcoming book The Parachutist. A 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow, he has had work appear in American Poetry Review, Border Crossing, Cincinnati Review, Circulo de Poesia, the Hooghly Review, Huizache, Iowa Review, the London Magazine, Missouri Review, the Moth, the Nation, Poetry, Poetry Wales, the Progressive, Southern Review, TriQuarterly, Witness, Yale Review, and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He teaches generative workshops for Hugo House, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, The Writer’s Center, and elsewhere. He serves as a poetry mentor in the Adroit Journal’s Summer Mentorship Program. He lives in Norwalk, California.

Malia Márquez was born in New Mexico and grew up in New England. She holds a BFA in 3D Fine Arts from Massachusetts College of Art & Design and an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She writes and teaches in Los Angeles. Find out more about her work at maliamarquez.com.

Dan O’Brien is a poet, playwright, and essayist whose recognition includes the UK’s Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship in Drama, and two PEN America Awards for playwriting. His previous poetry collections are Our Cancers, New Life, Scarsdale, and War Reporter. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.

James Stewart III is a Black writer and arts organizer from Chicago. His debut novel, Defiant Acts, is forthcoming from Acre Books in May 2025. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Lampblack, Zone 3, Midwest Review, The Forge, and 580 Split. He is a co-founder of the reading series and artist collective Exhibit B. Stewart earned an MFA from SAIC, an MA from North Central College, and a BA from Columbia College Chicago. He lives with his wife and daughter at the end of Dusable Lake Shore Drive.

Jessica E. Johnson is the author of the book-length poem Metabolics, the chapbook In Absolutes We Seek Each Other, and is a contributor to the anthology Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry. Her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in Paris Review, Tin House, New Republic, Poetry Northwest, River Teeth, Diagram, Annulet Poetics, Southeast Review, and Sixth Finch. She teaches at Portland Community College and cohosts the Constellation Reading Series at Tin House.

Jenn Scott’s debut collection, Her Adult Life, was long-listed for the PEN America/Bingham Award in 2018. Her work has appeared in journals including Fiction, Gettysburg Review, Cincinnati Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Santa Monica Review, and Gulf Coast. A native of Pennsylvania, she now lives and writes in Oakland, California.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

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

Celebrating Outside Women by Roohi Choudhry at Bel Canto KUBO, Long Beach – In-Person Event

Bel Canto Books is delighted to welcome AAPI authors to discuss the debut novel Outside Women.

Would you risk your own life to pursue justice for a stranger? Two migrant women―separated by geographies and generations―face this same devastating choice.

Lured away from her home in 1890s India, Sita is brought to South Africa as an indentured servant―one among millions funneled by the British to replace the recently abolished slave trade. One hundred years later, Hajra, a Pakistani scholar, is forced to flee to New York City from her home in Peshawar after witnessing a violent act meant to target her. She loses herself in academic research until she comes face-to-face with a photo of a laughing, defiant young woman brandishing a banner in protest. Inexorably drawn to this woman, Hajra travels to South Africa to learn more and unknowingly traces Sita’s path.

With raw imagery and rich sensory detail, Roohi Choudhry’s incandescent debut novel Outside Women intertwines the narratives of two women painfully yet valiantly carving their existences outside of patriarchal and colonial spaces as they search for kinship and strength in solidarity.

Roohi Choudhry was born in Pakistan and grew up in southern Africa. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan and is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship and residencies at Hedgebrook and Djerassi. She worked as a researcher in criminal justice reform and public health, wrote for the United Nations, and facilitates creative writing workshops for interfaith groups, schools, libraries, and community organizations. Her stories and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, Callaloo, Longreads, and the Kenyon Review. She is the author of Outside Women.

Lisa Ko is the author of the new novel Memory Piece and the nationally bestselling novel The Leavers, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Ko’s writing has appeared in Best American Short Stories, McSweeney’s, and The Believer.

Chris Yi Suh (she/they) is a queer diasporic Korean artist, writer, and spiritual care practitioner. As an artist-mystic, they believe in the power of creativity and storytelling as a path to cultivating empathy, speaking truth to power, and building spiritual and social change. As a spiritual director and retreat facilitator, they hold sacred space primarily for women & femmes, queer, trans and gender expansive folks of color through spiritual accompaniment, creative rituals, and somatic practices. Her hope for the communities she works with is to support folks’ ancestral connection, divine agency & interiority, and assist their healing journey in ways that aid collective liberation. More of their work can be found at their website: http://www.chrisyisuh.com or on IG @chrisyisuh.

Tamiko Beyer is a poet, writer, and spell-maker. Her books include LAST DAYS and WE COME ELEMENTAL, and she is a co-editor of POETRY AS SPELLCASTING: POEMS, ESSAYS, AND PROMPTS FOR MANIFESTING LIBERATION AND RECLAIMING POWER. She co-directs Brew & Forge, which brings poets and organizers together to alchemize dreaming and build capacity in movements for liberation, justice, and survival. She lives with her human, canine, and plant family on Lenapehoking and the land colonized as Philadelphia.

Yu-Mei Balasingamchow is the author of Names Have Been Changed, which will be published in 2026 by Tiny Reparations Books, an imprint of Penguin Books. Her short fiction has received a Pushcart Prize Special Mention and won the Mississippi Review Fiction Prize. She teaches at GrubStreet, where she manages the mentorship program, and is editor at Gaudy Boy, an imprint of the New York-based literary organization, Singapore UnBound. Originally from Singapore, she lives in Boston.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: Bel Canto KUBO Long Beach

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3976 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach, CA 90807

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celebrating-outside-women-by-roohi-choudhry-tickets-124860865099?aff=oddtdtcreator 

Jared Lemus, Santiago Jose Sanchez, and Ruben Reyes Jr. Discuss Their Book at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Jared Lemus reads from Guatemalan Rhapsody: Stories.

This vibrant debut story collection—poignant, unflinching, and immersive—masterfully moving between sharp wit and profound tenderness, Guatemalan Rhapsody offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of an ever-changing country, the people who claim it as home, and those who no longer do.

Ranging from a custodian at an underfunded college to a medicine man living in a temple dedicated to San Simon, the patron saint of alcohol and cigarettes, the characters in these stories find themselves at defining moments in their lives, where sacrifices may be required of them, by them, or for them.

Across this collection, Lemus’s characters test their loyalty to family, community, and country, illuminating the ties that both connect us and constrain us. He explores how we journey from the circumstances that we are forged by, and whether the ability to change our fortunes lies in our own hands or in those of another. Revealing the places where beauty, desperation, love, violence, and hope exist simultaneously, Jared Lemus’s debut establishes him as a major new voice in the form.

Santiago Jose Sanchez reads from Hombrecito: A Novel.

A novel by a brilliant new voice, Hombrecito is a queer coming-of-age story about a young immigrant’s complex relationships with his mother and his motherland

In this groundbreaking novel, the author plunges us into the heart of one boy’s life. His mother takes him and his brother from Colombia to America, leaving their absent father behind but essentially disappearing herself once they get to Miami.

In America, his mother works as a waitress when she was once a doctor. The boy embraces his queer identity as wholeheartedly as he embraces his new home, but not without a sense of loss. As he grows, his relationship with his mother becomes fraught, tangled, a love so intense that it borders on vivid pain but is also the axis around which his every decision revolves. She may have forgotten him, disappeared, but she is always on his mind.

He moves to New York, ducking in and out of bed with different men as he seeks out something, someone, to make him whole again. When his mother invites him to visit family in Colombia with her, he returns to the country as a young man, trying to find peace with his father, with his homeland, with who he’s become since he left, and with who his mother is: finally we come to know her and her secrets, her complex ambivalence and fierce love.

Hombrecito—“little man”—is a moving portrait of a young person between cultures, between different ideas of himself. From an extraordinary new talent, this is a story told with startling beauty and intensity, a story for anyone searching for home, searching for a way to love.

Ruben Reyes, Jr. reads from There is a Rio Grande in Heaven: Stories.

An electrifying debut story collection about Central American identity that spans past, present, and future worlds to reveal what happens when your life is no longer your own.

In There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven, the author conjures strange dreamlike worlds to explore what we would do if we woke up one morning and our lives were unrecognizable. Boundaries between the past, present, and future are blurred. Menacing technology and unchecked bureaucracy cut through everyday life with uncanny dread. The characters, from mango farmers to popstars to ex-guerilla fighters to cyborgs, are forced to make uncomfortable choices—choices that not only mean life or death, but might also allow them to be heard in a world set on silencing the voices of Central Americans.

Blazing with heart, humor, and inimitable style, There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven subverts everything we think we know about migration and its consequences, capturing what it means to take up a new life—whether willfully or forced—with piercing and brilliant clarity. A gifted new storyteller and trailblazing stylist, Reyes not only transports to other worlds but alerts us to the heartache and injustice of our own.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/jared-lemus-santiago-jose-sanchez-ruben-reyes-jr

AWP Off-site Event: Poetry at the Gate of Memoryat Japanese American National Museum (JANM) – In-Person Event

Join poets Brynn Saito (@brynnsaito) and traci kato-kiriyama (@traciakemi1) for a reading celebrating the forthcoming April 2025 release of The Gate of Memory: Poems by Descendants of Nikkei Wartime Incarceration.

Edited by Saito and Brandon Shimoda, this poetry anthology explores the afterlife of the historical yet enduring injustice of World War II–era prisons and camps. Featured readers include David Mura, Heather Nagami, Mia Ayumi Malhotra, James Fujinami Moore, and others, with a special tribute to poet, educator, and activist Amy Uyematsu and Claire Kageyama-Ramakrishnan.

This event is organized in conjunction with the 2025 convening of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference, which will be held in Los Angeles March 26–29. Conference registration is not required to attend this free, off-site event. Funding for this event has been provided by the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation.

RSVP at the link in bio @jamuseum

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

Where: Japanese American National Museum

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 100 N. Central Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012

Website: httpts://www.instagram.com/p/DHb1d6jhPHm/

Truman Capote Trust Event: Capote Night: CalArts + IAIA at Poetic Research Bureau – In-Person Event

Join CalArts, Institute of American Indian Arts, and Poetic Research Bureau for a celebration of the Truman Capote Trust and its Student Scholarship awards!

The MFA Programs in Creative Writing at CalArts and the MFA Program at IAIA are both proud beneficiaries of generous support from the Capote Trust for scholarships that financially support the work of exceptionally talented writers in their programs.

This special evening’s events will feature readings from the compelling work of six past or current Capote Scholarship awardees; three from CalArts and three from IAIA. We will hear work that is experimental, lyrical, apocalyptic, hilarious, incisive, fortifying and gleefully absurd.

Readers:

abbi page – CalArts

Serena Rodriguez – IAIA

Claire Wilcox – IAIA

Amanda Choo Quan – CalArts

Zoey Greenwald – CalArts

Chelsea Hicks – IAIA

NOTE: RSVP at website link.

Where: Poetic Research Bureau

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 7 pm

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

Website: https://www.poeticresearch.com/events/capote-night-calarts-iaia

Mariam Rahmani, with Lois Beckett, & LIQUID: A Love Story at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

This LA book event features Mariam Rahmani, in conversation with Lois Beckett, to discuss her novel LIQUID: A Love Story.

A book signing will follow the discussion.

Everyone is welcome. RSVP required.

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

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323

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

Poets Feed the Peopleat The Sims Library of Poetry – In-Person Event

Welcome to Poets Feed the People! Join us at the Sims Library Of Poetry for an evening of beautiful words and delicious food. Our talented poets will be sharing their work to nourish your soul while we provide tasty treats to nourish your body. Come together with fellow poetry lovers in person for a cozy and intimate event. Let’s celebrate the power of words and community. See you there!

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

Where: Sims Library of Poetry

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 7 pm – 9:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poets-feed-the-people-tickets-1291935105679

Unsolicited Press Reading featuring: Raki Kopernik, Darci Schummer, Robin Leigh Lear, and Kerry Donoghue at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Unsolicited Press features the following readers/bios:

Raki Kopernik is a first generation American, queer, Jewish writer. She is the author of The Things You Left and The Memory House, both Minnesota Book Award finalists. Her work has appeared in numerous publications and has been shortlisted and nominated for several other awards, including the Pushcart Prize for Fiction and the Pen Faulkner Award in Fiction. Her queer travel novel, No One’s Leaving, is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in 2025. She teaches creative writing both at The Minneapolis College of Art and Design and at Augsburg University. You can find her here and follow on Instagram @rakikopernik

Website: https://www.rakikopernik.com/

Darci Schummer is the author of the story collection Six Months in the Midwest (Unsolicited Press), the novel The Ballad of Two Sisters (Unsolicited Press), and the poetry chapbook The Book of Orion (Bottlecap Press). Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Ninth Letter, Folio, Jet Fuel Review, MAYDAY, Matchbook, Necessary Fiction, Sundog Lit, and Pithead Chapel, among many other places. She has been nominated both for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and in 2023, she was the artist-in-residence at the LaPointe Center for the Arts in LaPointe, Wisconsin, on Madeline Island. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and the Director of Creative Writing at Colorado State University Pueblo.

Website: https://www.darcischummer.com/

Robyn Leigh Lear is the Creative Director for April Gloaming Publishing, Associate Professor, and poet living in Nashville, TN. She is currently finalizing her second manuscript, Yonderling, written under the mentorship of Diane Seuss.

Kerry Donoghue’s poetry and stories have appeared in Ninth Letter, Painted Bride Quarterly, Permafrost, the Louisville Review, and the South Carolina Review, among other journals. She also wrote The Loudest Voice of All, a children’s book, to fundraise for an organization that educates girls about the power of voting. She earned an MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco and lives in the Bay Area with her family. Mouth is her first book.

Website: www.kerrydonoghue.com

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-27/unsolicited-press-reading-featuring-raki-kopernik-darci-schummer-robin-leigh-lear

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 28^th

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 28^th

Time: 9:30 am

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

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

Book Club: First Lie Wins at La Mirada Library, LACL – In-Person Kids Event

Join participants to discuss First Lie Wins by Ashley Elson.

The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she’s given a name and location by her boss Mr. Smith, she learns everything there’s to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job. Adults.

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

Where: La Mirada Library, LACL

Date: Friday the 28^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13006456

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 28^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

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

NEA Poetry Reading at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Spend a poetic afternoon at the Central Library!

We are hosting the winners of the 2025 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Poetry Prize Fellowships. Come hear these bold new voices read their work live in our beautiful Mark Taper Auditorium. You won’t want to miss this powerhouse performance as the 2025 winners light up DTLA with their fierce, fresh literary talent.

RSVP:

Email: fiction@lapl.org

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

Where: Central Library, LAPL, Mark Taper Auditorium

Date: Friday the 28^th

Time: 2 pm – 5 pm

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

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/nea-poetry-reading

Horror Book Club: Bless Your Heart at Compton Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss Lindy Ryan’s, Bless Your Heart. To borrow a print copy of the books, please contact the Compton Library directly. For Ages 18+

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

It’s 1999 in Southeast Texas and the Evans women, owners of the only funeral parlor in town, are keeping steady with…normal business. The dead die, you bury them. End of story. That’s how Ducey Evans has done it for the last eighty years, and her progeny―Lenore the experimenter and Grace, Lenore’s soft-hearted daughter, have run Evans Funeral Parlor for the last fifteen years without drama. Ever since That Godawful Mess that left two bodies in the ground and Grace raising her infant daughter Luna, alone.

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

Where: Compton Library, LACL

Date: Friday the 28^th

Time: 4 pm – 5 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12936708

Black Lit Book Club: The Reformatory at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss The Reformatory: A Novel by author Tananarive Due.

A gripping, page-turning “masterpiece” (Joe Hill, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman) set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.

Gracetown, Florida.

June 1950.

Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens Jr. is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.

The Reformatory is a “hallucinatory, haunting, terrifying, and moving” (S.A. Cosby, bestselling author of All the Sinners Bleed) work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.

Tananarive Due is an American Book Award and NAACP Image Award­–winning author, who was an executive producer on Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror for Shudder and teaches Afrofuturism and Black Horror at UCLA. She and her husband, science fiction author Steven Barnes, cowrote the graphic novel The Keeper and an episode for Season 2 of The Twilight Zone for Paramount Plus and Monkeypaw Productions. Due is the author of several novels and two short story collections, Ghost Summer: Stories and The Wishing Pool and Other Stories. She is also coauthor of a civil rights memoir, Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights (with her late mother, Patricia Stephens Due). Learn more at TananariveDue.com.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Friday the 28^th

Time: 6 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/black-lit-book-club-reformatory

AWP Offsite Event: Queer Dudes Book Chat: Rex Ogle & When We Ride at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

To celebrate the launch of Rex Ogle’s forthcoming When We Ride, participants will discuss the book with a panel of fellow authors: Rasheed Newson, Federico Erebia, Aaron Aceves and Marcelo Verdad Gallardo.

RSVP

Where: Chevalier’s

Date: Friday the 28^th

Time: 6 pm

Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004 

Website: https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/event/2025-03-28/queer-dudes-book-chat

AWP Off-site Event: Poetry Goes to the Moviesat Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Beyond Baroque Books’s imprint, Pacific Coast Poetry Series, presents a new anthology celebrating the magic of cinema. Edited by Suzanne Lummis, Poetry Goes to the Movies invites you to experience film through a poet’s lens. The book ranges from intimate reflections on beloved classics to critical interrogations of film’s role in shaping culture. This anthology brings together 100 established and emerging poets who engage with film capturing the vast, evocative power of movies and the movie-going experience.

As part of AWP 2025 in Los Angeles, our anthology launches in the heart of the film industry, providing the perfect environment for gathering poets to explore cinema’s complex relationship with art, memory, and the larger world.

Featured in this groundbreaking collection are some of the most influential contemporary American poets, including D. A. Powell, Lynn Emanuel, Ed Hirsch, Martín Espada, Dorothy Barresi, John Murillo, Tim Seibles, Kim Addonizio, and A. Van Jordan. Each poet brings their unique voices to the world of cinema, creating a tapestry of reflections that span genres, histories, and emotional landscapes.

Several contributors will read their texts in Beyond Baroque’s Wanda Coleman Theater, including: Suzanne Lummis, Kim Dower, Harry Northup, Ron Koertge, Marilyn Robertson, Mariano Zaro, Charles Webb, Phil Taggart, Jim Cushing, Celeste Goyer, Michele Bitting, Pam Ward, Carol V. Davis, Sarah McClay, David Trinidad, Harrison Hamm, Cecilia Woloch, Alison Turner, Kim Young, Amy Gerstler, Lois P. Jones, and Lee Herrick.

Enjoy a reception with refreshments and book signings after the performances.

Livestream: If you can’t join us in-person the event will be livestreamed on Beyond Baroque’s YouTube channel at the scheduled time of the event.

Where: Beyond Baroque

Date: Friday the 28^th

Time: 7 pm – 10 pm

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

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/awp-offsite-event-anthology-launch-poetry-goes-to-the-movies-tickets-1281277799389?aff=oddtdtcreator

Rich Benjamin, with Lan Samantha Chang, & Talk to Me: Lessons from a Family Forged by History at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Rich Benjamin, in conversation with Lan Samantha Chang, will present and sign Talk to Me: Lessons from a Family Forged by History.

A piercingly powerful memoir, a grandson’s account of the coup that ended his grandfather’s presidency of Haiti, the secrecy that shrouded that wound within his family, and his urgent efforts to know his mother despite the past.

Rich Benjamin’s mother, Danielle Fignolé, grew up the eldest in a large family living a comfortable life in Port-au-Prince. Her mother was a schoolteacher, her father a populist hero—a labor leader and politician. The first true champion of the black masses, he eventually became the country’s president in 1957. But two weeks after his inauguration, that life was shattered. Soldiers took Danielle’s parents at gunpoint and put them on a plane to New York, a coup hatched by the Eisenhower administration. Danielle and her siblings were kidnapped and ultimately smuggled out of the country.

Growing up, Rich knew little of this. No one in his family spoke of it. He didn’t know why his mother struggled with emotional connection, why she was so erratic, so quick to anger. And she, in turn, knew so little about him, about the emotional pain he moved through as a child, the physical agony from his blood disease, while coming to terms with his sexuality at the dawn of the AIDS crisis. For all that they could talk about—books, learning, world events—the deepest parts of themselves remained a mystery to one another, a silence that, the older Rich got, the less he could bear.

It would take Rich years to piece together the turmoil that carried forward, from his grandfather to his mother, to him, and then to bring that story to light. In Talk to Me, he doesn’t just paint the portrait of his family, but a bold, pugnacious portrait of America—of the human cost of the country’s hostilities abroad, the experience of migrants on these shores, and how the indelible ties of family endure through triumph and loss, from generation to generation.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Friday the 28^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/rich-benjamin

LA Community Open Mic: We Write, We Riseat 826LA Echo Park Writing Lab – In-Person Event

Join us for a thoughtful evening where we’ll share stories and reflections in a space of support and solidarity in the aftermath of the LA Fires!

In the wake of uncertainty and changes in our city, let’s come together to share stories of strength, resilience, and solidarity.

Join us for We Write, We Rise: An LA Community Open Mic event at 826LA. Let’s lift each other up and create a space for healing through words

FREE. All ages.

Where: 826LA Echo Park

Date: Friday the 28^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 1714 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026

Website: https://www.instagram.com/826la/p/DHZq4NaS4Ol/?hl=en

AWP Off-site Event: Slow Lightening Litat The Makery Gallery, DTLA – In-Person Event

Slow Lightning Lit, with Peggy Dobreer, is breaking out during AWP at The Makery Gallery. Free and open to the public.

This event features cameos, music, and readings from poets representing various locations.

See site and flyer for details,

Where: The Makery Gallery, DTLA

Date: Friday the 28^th

Time: 7 pm

Address: 260 S. Los Angeles St., Los Angeles, CA 90012 

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DG-7EsYJS6k/

AWP Off-site Event: Reading and Career Advancement Showcase at Poetic Research Bureau – In-Person Event

See site for some of the poets reading next Friday for AWP offsites @2220arts and PRB. 7:30 pm to late. More to come.

NOTE: RSVP at website link.

Where: Poetic Research Bureau

Date: Thursday the 27^th

Time: 7 pm

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHevf15yh9d/?img_index=1

At Skylight: A Night of Non(binary) Fiction at Skylight – In-Person

Join us for a very special evening, featuring an incredible lineup of writers:

Zoë Bossiere (they/she) is the author of Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir. They are the managing editor of Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction and co-editor of the anthologies The Best of Brevity and The Lyric Essay as Resistance: Truth from the Margins. Find them online at zoebossiere.com

Neesha Powell-Ingabire (she & they) is a coastal Georgia-born-and-raised movement journalist, essayist, and community & cultural organizer living in Atlanta/traditional Muscogee territory. She’s the director of popular education at Press On, a Southern movement media collective.

Neesha reports on the justice movements of the Black, trans, queer, and Southern communities to which she belongs and writes essays to recover her own history and the histories of her ancestors and their ancestral homes. Her writings have been published in various online and print publications, including Harper’s Bazaar, Oxford American, Scalawag, and VICE. Learn more about Neesha’s work at neeshawrites.com.

Jackie Domenus (they/she) is a queer writer from New Jersey and the author of No Offense: A Memoir in Essays from ELJ Editions. A 2021 Tin House Winter Workshop graduate, their work has appeared in The Offing, The Normal School, Foglifter Journal, and elsewhere. Jackie has formerly served as a publishing assistant at Guernica, an associate editor at Glassworks Mag, and a contest coordinator at Philadelphia Stories. Website: http://www.byjackied.com.

KB Brookins is a Black, queer, and trans writer and cultural worker from Texas. They are the author of Freedom House and How to Identify Yourself with a Wound. Brookins has poems, essays, and installation art published in Academy of American Poets, Teen Vogue, Poetry Magazine, Prizer Arts & Letters, Okayplayer, Poetry Society of America, Autostraddle, and other venues. They have earned fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN America, Equality Texas, and others.

Where: Skylight

Date: Friday the 28^th

Time: 7 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-night-nonbinaryfiction

AWP Off-site Event: Reading with Archway Editions Readers at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event

Featuring:

Nick Greer is a writer and designer from Berkeley. He holds an MFA Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. He is the author of Post Larva / House of the Painted Wolf, Forbidden Pleasures, Bad Year, Glass City.

Zoey Greenwald is a writer with a subtack. Her substak is internalized.zoey.

Naomi Falk is a writer, editor, and book designer living in Brooklyn. Her work fixates on art, intimacy, pain, and the ways in which we engage and disconnect our sensory perceptions. She is also the Rights Coordinator of MoMA’s Publications Department, the co-founder of the new print magazine and art collective NAUSIKÂE NYC, and senior editor for Archway Editions.

Lindsey Webb is the author of Plat (Archway Editions, 2024), which was named a best poetry book of 2024 by The New York Times Book Review, and the chapbooks Perfumer’s Organ (above/ground, 2023) and House (Ghost Proposal, 2020). Her writing has appeared in Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, jubilat, and Lana Turner, among others. With Kylan Rice, she edits Thirdhand Books.

Chris Molnar is a writer, editor, filmmaker and publisher.[1] He is the co-founder of The Writer’s Block[2] bookstore in Las Vegas, and editorial director of Archway Editions, the literary imprint of powerHouse Books distributed by Simon & Schuster.

Geoff Rickly N/A

Erin Taylor a writer and artist living in Los Angeles. I have been a poet since 2015, eventually becoming a journalist for five years in New York City where I also worked as the arts editor of Observer for two years. I am now working on my debut novel, a collection of short stories, several screenplays, and developing my first short film. My book Bimboland is out through Archway Editions and you can probably buy it at your local bookstore.

Elijah Jackson is a poet based between Berlin and New York.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Stories Books & Café

Date: Friday, the 28^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://storiesla.com

The Story of the Self in Creative Non-Fiction: Womxn, Allies, & Personal Histories at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Join us for a panel on creative non-fiction!

LA authors Amy Shimshon-Santo and Jackson Bliss join Laura Gaddis and Liz Kellebrew to read from and discuss their different books of lyrical nonfiction published by one of the West Coast’s best indie presses. The authors will discuss topics like intergenerational storytelling, mixed-race and hybrid identity, pregnancy loss, love, and ancestral history.

About the participants:

Dr. Amy Shimshon-Santo is a writer, teacher, and culture maker who believes that creativity is a powerful tool for personal and social transformation. She was born on Tovaangar land in current day Los Angeles, and has immediate family in the Southwest, the Middle East, and South America. She is the author of four books of poetry, a book of essays, and has edited three anthologies in the U.S. and special editions in Brazil and Nigeria. Her art and community work nourish inclusive cultural ecologies for planetary justice.

Jackson Bliss is the winner of the 2020 Noemi Book Award and the best-selling, mixed-race author of Counterfactual Love Stories & Other Experiments, Amnesia of June Bugs, & Dream Pop Origami, which was a 2022 Book of the Year by Independent Book Review. He lives in LA.

Liz Kellebrew is a Pacific Northwest writer known for her poetry, short fiction, and essays. She received The Miracle Monocle Award for Innovative Writing, and her work has appeared in public art installations and literary journals such as About Place, Room, and Catamaran. Learn more at lizkellebrew.com.

Laura Gaddis is an author/educator from Oxford, Ohio. Her memoir Mosaic (Unsolicited Press) delves into loss, motherhood, and parenting a child with disabilities. She has been published in Thin Air Magazine, 805 Lit + Art, Stonecoast Review, and elsewhere. More can be found at http://www.lauragaddis.com.

About the titles:

Random Experiments in Bioluminescence is a remarkable collection of luminous poems for cherishing cultures, languages, and the Earth from poet and urbanist Dr. Amy Shimshon-Santo.

Dream Pop Origami by Jackson Bliss is a beautiful, ambitious, interactive, and engrossing lyrical memoir about mixed-race identity, love, travel, AAPI masculinities, and personal metamorphosis. This experimental work of creative nonfiction examines, celebrates, and complicates what it means to be Asian & white, Nisei & hapa, Midwestern & Californian, Buddhist & American at the same time.

The River People by Liz Kellebrew is a haunting and lyrical exploration of 19th-century westward expansion into the Pacific Northwest. Through the intertwined journeys of Marilla, John, and Walter—each navigating rivers that serve as both roads and unforgiving forces—the book weaves together fiction, historical documents, memoir, and poetry. As these characters face hardships and triumphs, their choices and loves reverberate through generations. Kellebrew delves into the myths and realities of migration, revealing the harsh lessons the West has to offer. This powerful, evocative story of love, loss, and survival exposes the relentless nature of the land where nature shows no mercy.

Mosaic by Laura Gaddis is a story of exploration and self-identification, of grief, relationships, tackling mental health, and how to walk through difficult times when there is nowhere else to go. The story follows Laura, who along with her husband Jason, embarked on having a baby, only to go on a journey that spanned over five years. Over this time, Laura learned the hard truth about pregnancy loss, the medical field, and how to negotiate unforeseen difficulties. She persevered through four high-risk pregnancies, with the last one being a pregnancy more successful than the rest. Yet, it posed many tribulations, launching Laura and her husband into the world of an unpredictable birth, fetal abnormalities, their premature baby, the NICU, and breath-holding. Through the story, the book delves into grief and resilience, and how they work together to get Laura through a difficult time in her life. It shows how relying on her own mother also taught her how to enter motherhood for herself, no matter at what stage she considered herself to be a “mother.” Mosaic explores how to use challenges to change us into better versions of ourselves.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Friday, the 28^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/2149420250328

Brian Castleberry, with Laura Warrell, & The Californians at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Brian Castleberry, in conversation with Laura Warrell, will discuss his novel, The Californians.

It’s 2024, and Tobey Harlan—college dropout, temporary waiter, recently dumped—steals from the wall of his father’s house three paintings by the venerated and controversial artist Di Stiegl. Tobey’s just lost everything he owns to a Northern California wildfire, and if he can sell the paintings (albeit in a shady way to a notorious tech bro) he can start life anew in a place no one will ever find him, perhaps even Oregon.

A hundred years before, Klaus Aaronsohn—German-Jewish immigrant, resident of the Lower East Side—inveigled his way into a film studio in Astoria, Queens. In love with silent cinema, Klaus will restyle himself Klaus von Stiegl, a mysterious aristocratic German film director. In true Hollywood fashion, he will court fame, fortune, romance, and betrayal, and end his career directing Brackett: a radical, notorious 60s-era detective show.

Weaving between Tobey and Klaus is the story of Diane “Di” Stiegl: Klaus’s granddaughter, raised in Palm Springs, who claws out a career as an artist in gritty 1980s NYC. As America yields the presidency to a Hollywood cowboy, as Diane’s grifter father and free-spirited mother circle in and out of her life, Diane will reflect America’s most urgent and hypocritical years back to itself, uneasily finding critical adoration as well as great fame and wealth.

A dazzling novel, The Californians is an ambitious and sweeping journey across a century. Nuanced and textured, gloriously funny, a critical portrait of the collective American consciousness that has brought us to today, it showcases Brian Castleberry as an inventive, stylish storyteller and a sharp observer of the human condition.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Friday the 28^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-28/brian-castleberry-and-laura-warrell-discuss-californians

The Definitive Soapbox Open Mic (TDSB) at Wrigley’s Coffee, Long Beach – In-Person Event

The Definitive Soapbox. Every last Friday at Wrigley Coffee. All ages.

For more infro: https://www.instagram.com/thedefinitivesoapbox/

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Wrigley’s Coffee

Date: Friday the 28^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

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

Book Club for Middle Grade Readers: Room to Dream via Palisades Branch Library, LAPL Library – Online Kids Event

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

This month we will be reading: Room to Dream by Kelly Yang.

RSVP:

Please email: akagan@lapl.org or gkim@lapl.org for the Zoom login information.

Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday, the 29^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-middle-grade-readers-room-dream-kelly-yang

View Park Book Club: Maame at View Park Bebe Moore Campbell Library, LACL – In-Person Event

For March we will read Maame (pronounced mah-meh) by Jessica George. For adults.

The View Park Library Book Club meets monthly on a Saturday, 11 – 12:30 pm, in person at View Park Bebe Moore Campbell Library or via Zoom. Please visit the library, call, or email cray@library.lacounty.gov to be added to the email list.

Where: View Park Bebe Moore Campbell Library, LACL

Date: Saturday, the 29^th

Time: 11 am – 12:30 pm

Address: 3854 W. 54th St., Los Angeles, CA 90043 

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13215660

Beyond Baroque’s Fifth Annual 30 in 30 Workshop with Brendan Constantine at Beyond Baroque – Online Event 

Join us online as Beyond Baroque hosts our Fifth Annual 30 in 30 Workshop with the amazing Brendan Constantine!

Poet Brendan Constantine returns to Beyond Baroque for National Poetry Month and his popular 30/30 Challenge Workshop! Beginning on the last Saturday of March and through every Saturday in April, participants will engage in projects and discussions to inspire even the most reluctant writer. At the end of each session, everyone receives a packet of prompts and materials to keep you writing a poem a day! This is its fifth popular year in a row and spaces will go fast, so reserve today!

This workshop will be conducted across five Saturdays, beginning on Saturday March 29 – Saturday April 26, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

All workshops will be held online via Zoom.

About the facilitator:

Brendan Constantine is a poet based in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in Poetry, The Nation, Best American Poetry, Tin House, Ploughshares, and Poem-a-Day among other journals. A popular performer, Brendan has presented his work to audiences throughout the U.S. and Europe, also appearing on NPR’s All Things Considered, TED ED, numerous podcasts, and YouTube. He currently teaches at the Windward School and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His fifth collection, ‘The Opposites Game’ is forthcoming from Red Hen Press.

Workshop attendees are expected to participate in a respectful, constructive, and considerate manner. Beyond Baroque reserves the right to remove individuals from our workshops, virtual or otherwise, if they are not respecting the space, fellow participants, or facilitator.

NOTE: See site for tickets, and details. 

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Saturday, the 29^th (through April 26^th)

Time: 11 am – 1 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beyond-baroques-fifth-annual-30-in-30-workshop-with-brendan-constantine-tickets-1264667838549?aff=oddtdtcreator

Glendale Poet Laureate Poetry Workshop Reading at Glendale Library – In-Person Event

Calling all writers! The Glendale Poet Laureate Program invites you to the next installment of the workshop reading series to develop poems and explore craft alongside our featured poet Lee Herrick (California Poet Laureate).

Free and open to the public.

Light refreshments provided.

Registration encouraged, not required.

All levels are welcome.

Where: Glendale Public Library

Date: Saturday, the 29^th

Time: 11 am – 2 pm

Address: 222 East Harvard St., Glendale CA 91205

Website: https://glendaleca.libnet.info/event/12841642

Kids Storytime with Charlotte Offsay & Matzah Day at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

This March, in celebration of Passover, we’re thrilled to welcome back to the store author Charlotte Offsay, who will read from her picture book Matzah Day!

Reserve your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

In this fun rhyming story, a family celebrates Passover with lots of matzah–with lox, as stuffing, matzah pizza, and matzah candy. Get it from a box or make it yourself.

Charlotte Offsay was born in England, grew up in Boston, and currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two small children. Through her work, Charlotte hopes to make children laugh, to inspire curiosity, and to create a magical world her readers can lose themselves in time and time again. Her books include A Grandma’s Magic; Eight Sweet Nights, A Festival of Lights; The Big Beach Cleanup; and How to Return a Monster. Learn more about Charlotte’s work at charlotteoffsay.com and follow her on Instagram at @picturebookrecommendations.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Saturday, the 29^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/2202720250329

Storytime: Gabriela Orozco Belt, with Mirelle Ortega, & I Am, Yo Soy at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event

Gabriela Orozco Belt, in conversation with Mirelle Ortega, presents her children’s book I Am, Yo Soy.

With lyrical text in English and Spanish, this vibrant picture book is a celebration of Hispanic American identity—showcasing the beauty of being part of two cultures. Author Gabriela Orozco Belt and Pura Belpré Award Honor Book illustrator Mirelle Ortega honor all the big and small ways that embracing both heritages are the key to being exactly who you’re meant to be.

Gabriela Orozco Belt is a Costa Rican American writer who knows about family, change, and love. She has a large, loving family, and while she moved often as a child, she now calls the Mojave Desert home. Gabriela is a school librarian and Only for a Little While is her debut picture book. You can visit Gabriela at gabrielabelt.com.

Mirelle Ortega is an award-winning Mexican artist and writer for kidlit and animation based in Los Angeles, California. She is the author-illustrator of River of Mariposas and Magic: Once Upon a Faraway Land, for which she received a 2023 Pura Belpré Award Illustration Honor and an International Latino Book Award bronze medal.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Saturday the 29^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-29/gabriela-orozco-belt-conversation-mirelle-ortega-discusses-i-am-yo-soy

3rd Annual Poetry Lives at Pico Union Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Do you have a way with words? Do you dream in verses and rhymes? Then this is your moment to shine! Pico Union Neighborhood Council in collaboration with the Friends of the Pico Union Library are thrilled to announce the 3rd Annual Poetry Lives in Pico Union.

Where: Pico Union Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday, the 29^th

Time: 12 pm – 3 pm

Address: 1030 S. Alvarado St., Los Angeles, CA 90006

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/3rd-annual-poetry-lives-pico-union

AWP Off-site Event: Somos Chicanos Reading at LA Plaza de Cultura – In-Person Event

Join special guest, Xicana literary icon, Lorna Dee Cervantes, and others to celebrate the publication of Somos Xicanas Anthology. Edited by Luz Schweig and published by Riot of Roses Publishing House, this reading will amplify the important contributions of Xicana trailblazers and emerging voices alike. Full line-up revealed soon!

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: LA Plaza de Cultural Y Artes

Date: Saturday the 29^th

Time: 2 pm

Address: 501 N. Main St., Los Angeles, CA 90012

Website: https://lapca.org/event/somos-xicanas-free/?event_date=2025-03-29 

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

Calling all writers of fiction, screenplays, poetry, etc. Get feedback on your writing in a fun, supportive environment! The Central Library Creative Writing Group meets every other Saturday for fellowship, feedback, and snacks. Meetings start out with a short writing prompt exercise, then writers are invited to share up to five pages of their work for feedback from the group. Whether you are just starting out or well on your way to glory, join us and banish (at least temporarily) those Lonely Writer Blues!

Upcoming Meetings through June listed at site.

Where: Central Library, LAPL, Meeting Room B

Date: Saturday, the 29^th

Time: 3 pm

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

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

Karen Finley & COVID Vortex Anxiety Opera Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Karen Finley will discuss her book COVID Vortex Anxiety Opera Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco, which meditates on the extraordinary time of loss, isolation, and bizarre rituals of the Covid era and its aftermath.

First performed at sold-out theaters in New York, where the Village Voice compared Karen Finley to Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso, this vivid suite of poems invokes a maelstrom of feelings that will make you laugh and cry, sometimes on the same page. In COVID Vortex Anxiety Opera Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco, Finley processes the pandemic in all its complexity—from the collective coping strategies during isolation and loss to the absurd new habits we acquired, from handwashing to wiping down groceries to decorative double masks and zoom dance parties.

On the fifth anniversary of the pandemic lockdown, COVID Vortex Anxiety Opera Kitty Kaleidoscope Disco looks back while also looking forward, offering art as salvation, and the deep belief in the power of words, compassion, and humor to transcend the harsh realities of today.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Saturday the 29^th

Time: 3 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/karen-finley

Saturday Afternoon Poetry: 2024 Poetry Awards via Saturday Afternoon Poetry – Online Event

Join us for: Featured: Poets nominated for the 2024 Four Feathers Press PDF/Print Publication Awards.

Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.

Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry

Date: Saturday, the 29^th

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)

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

World Stage Press Poets: Shadow Work Writers at The High Low – In-Person Event

This event features:

James Coats

Lynda V.E. Crawford

Ben Drevlow

Eli Hastings

Shaun Anthony Mc Michael

Asia Moore

Angela Franklin

Where: The High Low

Date: Saturday the 29^th

Time: 4 pm – 7 pm

Address: 3000 Los Feliz Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90039 

Website: https://www.facebook.com/worldstagepress/photos/james-coats-and-lynda-ve-crawford-are-at-the-shadow-work-writers-next-month-this/1247983370663297/

Community Open Mic via Nervous Ghost Press – Online Event

Join us for our Monthly Open Mic, held online every last Saturday evening at 6:30 pm.

Sign up today @nerovusghostpress.org.

Where: Nervous Ghost Press

Date: Saturday, the 29^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

Address: Online YouTube Event (see site) 

Website: https://www.nervousghostpress.org/openmic

The Literary Auction: Poetry & Flash Fiction Slam at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Join us for The Literary Auction, a flash fiction and poetry session with a chance of publication in a literary magazine!

Readers will be invited to stage to read a single page/up to 5 minutes of an as-unpublished work of poetry or flash fiction. Guest judges from JAKE, Alternative Milk, HAD, and Troublemaker Firestarter will offer live critique and rate the pieces’ readiness for publication live. Selected writers may win publication with one of the four journals!

Reserve your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Saturday, the 29^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/2178620250329

AWP Off-site Event: LITERAOKI – AWP 25 at Kaya Press – In-Person Event

Literaoke was invented by LA’s Asian American literary community nearly 10 years ago at AWP 2016—which also took place in Los Angeles—and is now staged across the country.

Celebrate with some of our Literaoke OGs on Saturday, March 29 from 8 – 10 pm @ Groundfloor, 160 Glendale Boulevard Los Angeles, CA. Link in bio to RSVP. Stay tuned for more announcements as we add to the lineup! Come hear your faves saaaaaaaaaang.

Where: Kaya Press, Groundfloor

Date: Saturday, the 29^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Address: 160 Glendale Blvd., Echo Park, Los Angeles, CA 90012 

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHZkCsHyy4i/?img_index=1

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 30^th (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

Charlotte Offsay & Matzah Day at Children’s Book World – In-Person Kids Event

A Passover Celebration featuring the storytime launch of Matzah Day! by Challah Day! author, Charlotte Offsay and music fun with Music with Kira.

Charlotte Offsay is the author of several children’s books including A Grandma’s Magic, The Quiet Forest, Challah Day!, and The Big Beach Cleanup. When she is having a particularly loud day, she can always count on her two small bear cubs and husband to bring calm and quiet back to their home in Los Angeles, California. Learn more at CharlotteOffsay.com.

Kira Rappaport is a well-loved and experienced early childhood music specialist in Los Angeles. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Flute Performance and a Master’s Degree in Music Education. Kira teaches outdoor Parent and Me Music classes, as well as Preschool Music Classes and regularly presents workshops to teachers on the use of music in the classroom. Her band, Kira Rappaport & Friends, performs at Southern California festivals, camps and libraries during the summer months. Kira is married with 2 daughters ages 11 & 13 and her albums, “Sing Together” and “Beautiful Day”, are available for Download and Streaming. Learn more about Kira from her website: www.musicwithkira.com

Where: Children’s Book World

Date: Sunday the 30^th

Time: 11 am (Open 10 am – 1 pm)

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

Website: https://www.childrensbookworld.com/event/matzah-day-book-launch-celebration-storytime-author-charlotte-offsay-and-music-kira-sunday

Burning Issues Book Club: The Body Is Not an Apology at Bel Canto Books, Long Beach – In-Person Event

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

Participants will discuss our March selection, The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by author Sonya Renee Taylor.

This second edition includes stories from Taylor’s travels around the world combating body terrorism and shines a light on the path toward liberation guided by love. In a brand new final chapter, she offers specific tools, actions, and resources for confronting racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia. And she provides a case study showing how radical self-love not only dismantles shame and self-loathing in us but has the power to dismantle entire systems of injustice.

Where: Bel Canto Books, Long Beach

Date: Sunday, the 30^th

Time: 12 pm – 1 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/burning-issues-book-club-2025-hosted-by-bel-canto-books-tickets-1106480365559?aff=oddtdtcreator

TIMPLA Cookbook Club: Arabiyya at Bel Canto Books, Long Beach – In-Person Event

TIMPLA cookbook club is hosted by ginataan gang, a group of three pinays with a shared love for gardening, storytelling, cooking, and food as resistance. Each gathering celebrates a different cookbook, diving into the diasporic recipes, cultural influences, and the histories they carry.

Our first discussion features Reem Assil’s Arabiyya: Recipes from the Life of an Arab in Diaspora. Participants are invited to share a dish they’ve cooked from the book. More than just a meal, our table is a space for connection—where food serves as a lens into land, home, and migration.

Where: Bel Canto KUBO, Long Beach

Date: Sunday, the 30^th

Time: 4 pm – 6 pm

Address: 3976 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach, CA 90807

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/timpla-cookbook-club-tickets-1246360270119?aff=oddtdtcreator

Writers Bloc & Book Soup Present: Graydon Carter, with Monica Lewinsky, & When the Going Was Good at The Writers Guild – In-Person Event

Writers Bloc & Book Soup present Graydon Carter in conversation with Monica Lewinsky, to discuss his book, When the Going Was Good.

In his new book, When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines, we see Carter’s profound influence on American lifestyle and culture. While no longer steering Vanity Fair, he is now the co-founder of the indispensable digital magazine, Air Mail. Graydon Carter’s inestimable impact cannot be understated: we see it not only in the glamour of the entertainment industry, but more important, in magazine journalism, just brimming with features and photography that have been so fundamental to our culture.

When the Going Was Good spills over with great stories featuring outsize personalities. Graydon Carter cultivated wonderful writers, artists, and photographers when he ran Spy and Vanity Fair. And his own story is as captivating as any that appeared under his watch.

Where: The Writers Guild Theater

Date: Sunday, the 30^th

Time: 4 pm

Address: 135 South Doheny Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/writers-bloc-book-soup-present-graydon-carter-monica-lewinsky

The Poetry Salon: A Readingat Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Join us for an evening of poetry with acclaimed and award-winning authors, hosted by The Poetry Salon!

Afterwards, mingle with fellow artists, get your books signed, and make new friends.

Featured artists include: Tresha Haefner (When the Moon Had Antlers), Karen Greenbaum-Maya (The Beautiful Leaves), Nancy Murphy (The Space Carved by the Sharpness of Your Absence), Channel Brenner (Vanilla Milk), Robbi Nester (Narrow Bridge), Jon Pearson, and more.

Reserve your tickets on EVENTBRITE! 

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Sunday the 30^th

Time: 5 pm

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/2338520250330