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

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

Note: Please RSVP at site.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Author Talk: Lisa Jewell & Don’t Let Him In via Virtual Event, LACL – In-Person Event

Join an exclusive preview event with author Lisa Jewell as she introduces us to her forthcoming thriller, Don’t Let Him In, out June 24, 2025. Jewell will also chat about her life as a writer and her critically-acclaimed body of work.

In her new bone-chilling, psychological thriller Don’t Let Him In, Lisa Jewell introduces us to three women connected by one man.

Nick Radcliffe is a man of substance and good taste. He has a smile that could melt the coldest heart and a knack for putting others at ease. He’s just what Nina Swann needed in her life after her husband’s unexpected death. But to Nina’s adult daughter, Ash, Nick seems too slick, too polished, too good to be true. Without telling her mother, Ash begins digging into Nick’s past. What she finds is more than unsettling…

Things don’t make sense and patience is wearing thin…

Martha is a florist living in a neighboring town with her infant daughter and her devoted husband Alistair. But lately, Alistair has been traveling more and more frequently for work, disappearing for days at a time. When Martha questions him about his frequent absences, he always has a legitimate explanation. But Martha can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right, despite her husband calling her mad and insisting they know everything there is to know about one another.

Nina, Martha, and Ash are on a collision course with a shocking truth that is far darker than anyone could have imagined. And all three are about to wish they had heeded the same warning: Don’t let him in. But the past won’t stay buried forever.

Register now for the thrill of a lifetime!

About the Author: Lisa Jewell is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-three novels, including None of This Is True, The Family Upstairs, and Then She Was Gone, as well as Invisible Girl and Watching You. Her novels have sold over ten million copies internationally, and her work has also been translated into twenty-nine languages. Connect with her on X @LisaJewellUK, on Instagram @LisaJewellUK, and on Facebook @LisaJewellOfficial.

Where: Virtual Event, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13437908

Pride Month: Audre Lorde Poetry Night at Willowbrook Library, LACL – In-Person Teen Event

Audre Lorde was a prominent New York poet whose work covered an array of subjects ranging from civil to gay rights. Join us as we learn about Lorde’s life while we work together to create a community poem.

Where: Willowbrook Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm

Address: 11737 Wilmington Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90059

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13541915

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

Share a poem you wrote or a poem you love. You are also welcome to just listen and enjoy.

RSVP:

To receive a Zoom invitation, please contact wwood@lapl.org.

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 6 pm

Address: Online Event

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-open-mic-0

Silver Lake Book Club: The Queen’s Gambit at Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss wonderful books, from new bestsellers to old favorites. The meetings are held in person, unless circumstances warrant a hybrid meeting with Zoom added.

June: The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis

Where: Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/silver-lake-book-club-0

Book Club Tuesday: An American Marriage at Hollydale Library, LACL – In-Person & Event

Join us this month for a facilitated discussion of An American Marriage by Tayari Jones. Copies of the current title are available to check out at the customer service desk while supplies last. New members are always welcome! For adults.

Where: Hollydale Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: 12000 Garfield Ave., South Gate, CA 90280

New members welcome!

Where: Westchester – Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/world-cultures-reading-circle-book-discussion

Comic Book & Graphic Novel Discussion: Traveling to Mars via Palms – Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event

Join us for the next online comic book & graphic novel discussion as we talk about Traveling to Mars by Mark Russell. Copies are available at the reference desk and as e-books.

RSVP: Please email prncho@lapl.org for the meeting link.

Where: Palms – Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Bridget Crocker is a trailblazer in women’s empowerment in the outdoor industry. A leading whitewater rafting guide in far-flung regions of Zambia, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Peru, Chile, Costa Rica, India, and the Western United States. Her work has been featured in magazines such as Westways, National Geographic Adventure, Trail Runner, and Patagonia’s blog, The Cleanest Line, among others. In The River’s Daughter, we follow a young Crocker on a gripping and inspiring adventure through adversity as she finds empowerment through her relationship with the rivers she navigates as one of the world’s foremost female rafting guides.

Elle Johnson is a TV writer and executive producer whose credits include “Law and Order” and “CSI Miami.” Johnson’s 2021 debut memoir, The Officer’s Daughter, is the story of family tragedy and forgiveness.

Together, Crocker and Johnson will discuss the parallels they faced while navigating hardship and tragedy.

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

Where: Malibu Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

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

Free event. 21+

Note: Please RSVP at site.

Where: The Aftermath Bar

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 7 pm – 10 pm

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

From the acclaimed author of the young adult graphic novel Flamer comes a heartwarming story following four gay Asians navigating love, identity, and friendship—a celebration of queer chosen family.​

When AJ moves to Seattle in the early aughts, he’s ready to reinvent himself as a gay Asian man—but his dreams hit reality fast with no friends, no job, and an apartment so far out, “not even lesbians live there.” Then a spilled drink at a bar introduces him to K, a glamorous drag queen; John, a shy gamer; and Steven, a reckless flirt. AJ’s “Boy Luck Club” helps him find love, pride, and belonging—until a brutal attack tests everything they know about friendship and family.

Meticulously observed and gorgeously illustrated, Gaysians is a fierce, funny, and tender story of queer resilience and self-discovery.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/mike-curato-rex-ogle

Adult Book Group: A Short Walk Through a Wide World at Once Upon a Time – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Whether you loved it, hated it, or haven’t finished it, we want to see you at our Adult Book Club that has been going strong for 40+ years at America’s Oldest Children’s Bookstore!

Participants will discuss A Short Walk Through a Wide World: A Novel by Douglas Westerbeke.

Paris, 1885: Aubry Tourvel, a spoiled and stubborn nine-year-old girl, comes across a wooden puzzle ball on her walk home from school. She tosses it over the fence, only to find it in her backpack that evening. Days later, at the family dinner table, she starts to bleed to death.

When medical treatment only makes her worse, she flees to the outskirts of the city, where she realizes that it is this very act of movement that keeps her alive. So begins her lifelong journey on the run from her condition, which won’t allow her to stay anywhere for longer than a few days—nor return to a place where she’s already been.

From the scorched dunes of the Calanshio Sand Sea to the snow-packed peaks of the Himalayas; from a bottomless well in a Parisian courtyard, to the shelves of an infinite underground library, we follow Aubry as she learns what it takes to survive and ultimately, to truly live. But the longer Aubry wanders and the more desperate she is to share her life with others, the clearer it becomes that the world she travels through may not be quite the same as everyone else’s…

Where: Once Upon a Time

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

A book signing will follow the event.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3806 Main St., Culver City, CA 90232

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

Mystery & Thriller Book Club: Mastering the Art of French Murder via Santa Monica Library – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge.

To register, email library@santamonica.gov.

Event rescheduled – originally on Tuesday, Jun 17, 2025

Where: Santa Monica Public Library

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Janelle Brown, in conversation with Rufi Thorpe, will discuss What Kind of Paradise.

A teenage girl breaks free from her father’s world of isolation to discover that her whole life is a lie in this propulsive new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Things and Watch Me Disappear.

The first thing you have to understand is that my father was my entire world.

Growing up in an isolated cabin in Montana in the mid-1990s, Jane knows only the world that she and her father live in: the woodstove that heats their home, the vegetable garden where they try to eke out a subsistence, the books of nineteenth-century philosophy that her father gives her to read in lieu of going to school. Her father is elusive about their pasts, giving Jane little beyond the facts that they once lived in the Bay Area and that her mother died in a car accident, the crash propelling him to move Jane off the grid to raise her in a Waldenesque utopia.

As Jane becomes a teenager she starts pushing against the boundaries of her restricted world. She begs to accompany her father on his occasional trips away from the cabin. But when Jane realizes that her devotion to her father has made her an accomplice to a horrific crime, she flees Montana to the only place she knows to look for answers about her mysterious past, and her mother’s death: San Francisco. It is a city in the midst of a seismic change, where her quest to understand herself will force her to reckon with both the possibilities and the perils of the fledgling internet, and where she will come to question everything she values.

In this sweeping, suspenseful novel from bestselling author Janelle Brown, we see a young woman on a quest to understand how we come to know ourselves. It is a bold and unforgettable story about parents and children; nature and technology; innocence and knowledge; the losses of our past and our dreams for the future.

Janelle Brown is the New York Times bestselling author of I’ll Be You, Pretty Things, Watch Me Disappear, All We Ever WantedWas Everything, and This Is Where We Live. An essayist and journalist, she has written for Vogue, The New York Times, Elle, Wired, Self, Los Angeles Times, Salon, and more. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two children.

Rufi Thorpe is the author of Margo’s Got Money Troubles; The Knockout Queen, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award; Dear Fang, with Love; and The Girls from Corona del Mar, which was long-listed for the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. A native of California, she currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.

Where: Skylight

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-janelle-brown-presents-what-kind-paradise-w-rufi-thorpe

Kyra Davis Lurie & The Great Mann at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Kyra Davis Lurie will discuss The Great Mann.

In this poignant retelling of The Great Gatsby, set amongst L.A.’s Black elite, a young veteran finds his way post-war, pulled into a new world of tantalizing possibilities—and explosive tensions.

In 1945, Charlie Trammell steps off a cross-country train into the vibrant tapestry of Los Angeles. Lured by his cousin Marguerite’s invitation to the esteemed West Adams Heights, Charlie is immediately captivated by the Black opulence of L.A.’s newly rechristened “Sugar Hill.”

Settling in at a local actress’s energetic boarding house, Charlie discovers a different way of life—one brimming with opportunity—from a promising career at a Black-owned insurance firm, the absence of Jim Crow, to the potential of an unforgettable romance. But nothing dazzles quite like James “Reaper” Mann.

Reaper’s extravagant parties, attended by luminaries like Lena Horne and Hattie McDaniel, draw Charlie in, bringing the milieu of wealth and excess within his reach. But as Charlie’s unusual bond with Reaper deepens, so does the tension in the neighborhood as white neighbors, frustrated by their own dwindling fortunes, ignite a landmark court case that threatens the community’s well-being with promises of retribution.

Told from the unique perspective of a young man who has just returned from a grueling, segregated war, The Great Mann weaves a compelling narrative of wealth and class, illuminating the complexities of Black identity and education in post-war America.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-06-10/kyra-davis-lurie-discusses-signs-great-mann

The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rick Lupert & Guest Preeti Vangani – Online Zoom Event

Cobalt Poets Reading & Open Mic and host Rick Lupert welcomes guest Preeti Vangani.

Preeti Vangani, born and raised in Mumbai, is the author of Mother Tongue Apologize (RLFPA Editions). Her poetry has been published in Gulf Coast, Hobart, Threepenny Review, among other journals. Her essays have been published in Buzzfeed India, The Ladies Finger, Huffington Post among other places.

Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event

Date: Tuesday, the 10^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Jacinda Ardern, in conversation with Rachel Bloom will discuss here book, A Different Kind of Power.

From the former prime minister of New Zealand, then the world’s youngest female head of government and just the second to give birth in office, comes a deeply personal memoir chronicling her extraordinary rise and offering inspiration to a new generation of leaders.

What if we could redefine leadership? What if kindness came first? Jacinda Ardern grew up the daughter of a police officer in small-town New Zealand, but as the 40th Prime Minister of her country, she commanded global respect for her empathetic leadership that put people first. This is the remarkable story of how a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt made political history and changed our assumptions of what a global leader can be.

The Right Honourable Dame Jacinda Ardern was elected the 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand at the age of thirty-seven, becoming the country’s youngest Prime Minister in more than 150 years. Since leaving office, Ardern has established the Field Fellowship on empathetic leadership. She is a Senior Fellow at Harvard University, continues to work on climate action, and is the Patron of the Christchurch Call to Action to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. Ardern also works on a number of projects that support women and girls, but considers her greatest roles to be those she will hold for life, including that of mum and proud New Zealander.

NOTE: Ticket purchase at website.

Where: Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre at New Roads School 

Date: Tuesday the 10^th

Time: 8 pm

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

Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/upcoming-events/

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

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.

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

Masks are encouraged.

Where: Greenway Court Theatre

Date: Tuesday, the 10^th

Time: 9 pm – 11 pm

Come write with us!

Many people believe that morning writing practice is key to finding your voice, your story and, in this case, your community! At the Village Well!

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning at 8:30 am come join acclaimed author and writing instructor Francesca Lia Block for a brief intro and 40 minutes of free writing on any topic without judgement. Afterwards, you will be able to share a bit about your process and ask Francesca questions about 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: Wednesday the 11^th

Time: 8:30 am – 9:30 am

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

New members welcome!

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday, the 11^th

Time: 10:30 am

Address: 19036 Vanowen St., Reseda, CA 91335

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

Special Author Luncheon: Janelle Brown, with Jordan Moblo, & What Kind of Paradise with pages: a bookstore, at Rockefeller Hermosa – Offsite In-Person Event

Janelle Brown, in conversation with Jordan Moblo, will discuss What Kind of Paradise at a special author luncheon at Rockefeller Hermosa.

A teenage girl breaks free from her father’s world of isolation in this exhilarating novel of family, identity, and the power we have to shape our own destinies—from the New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Things and Watch Me Disappear

The first thing you have to understand is that my father was my entire world.

Growing up in an isolated cabin in Montana in the mid-1990s, Jane knows only the world that she and her father live in: the woodstove that heats their home, the vegetable garden where they try to eke out a subsistence existence, the books of nineteenth-century philosophy that her father gives her to read in lieu of going to school. Her father is elusive about their pasts, giving Jane little beyond the facts that they once lived in the Bay Area and that her mother died in a car accident, the crash propelling him to move Jane off the grid to raise her in a Thoreau-like utopia.

As Jane becomes a teenager she starts pushing against the boundaries of her restricted world. She begs to accompany her father on his occasional trips away from the cabin. But when Jane realizes that her devotion to her father has made her an accomplice to a horrific crime, she flees Montana to the only place she knows to look for answers about her mysterious past, and her mother’s death: San Francisco. It is a city in the midst of a seismic change, where her quest to understand herself will force her to reckon with both the possibilities and the perils of the fledgling Internet, and where she will come to question everything she values.

Janelle Brown is the New York Times bestselling author of I’ll Be You, Pretty Things, Watch Me Disappear, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, and This Is Where We Live. An essayist and journalist, she has written for Vogue, The New York Times, Elle, Wired, Self, Los Angeles Times, Salon, and more. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two children.

Jordan “Jordy” Moblo runs the popular Book Instagram (“Bookstagram”) account @jordys.book.club, and has established himself as an influential voice in the publishing world. Over the past six years, Moblo has built an online community of over 245,000 avid readers and book lovers, and has been featured in People Magazine, The Washington Post, and Slate.

NOTE: Ticket purchase at site.

Where: Rockefeller Hermosa

Date: Monday the 2^nd

Time: 11:30 am – 1 pm

Address: 418 Pier Ave, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2025-06-11/special-author-luncheon-janelle-brown

Artesia Book Club: Entitlement at West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss Entitlement by Rumaan Alam.

All interested persons are welcome and invited to attend.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Artesia Library, LACL

Date: Wednesday, the 11^th

Time: 1 pm – 2 pm

Address: 18801 Elaine Ave., Artesia, CA 90701

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13779192

Poets Café via KPFK 90.7 FM – Live On-Air Event

Poets Café celebrates Poetry. This program is a weekly half-hour literary arts discussion and reading program featuring guest authors and their works.

Poetry From Around the World is a segment of this series offered monthly on the 2^nd Monday of the month on KPFK Los Angeles 90.7 FM.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: KPFK 90.7 FM

Date: Wednesday, the 11^th

Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm

Address: On-air Event (live)

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

Creative Writing Workshop at Canoga Park Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Whether you’re trying a new hobby or submitting your work for publication, this creative writing workshop is for you. We will get the creative juices flowing with some fun writing exercises, then critique one or two participants short stories per session. Email katie.wright@lapl.org for upcoming workshop stories and to add yourself to the critique schedule.

RSVP:

Email katie.wright@lapl.org.

Where: Canoga Park Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday, the 11^th

Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm

Address: 20939 Sherman Way, Canoga Park, CA 91303

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/creative-writing-workshop-0

What’s My Line? Exploring the Line Breaks and Syntax via The Poetry Lab – Online Event

In this workshop we will explore the relationship between line breaks and syntax and how they can work together to build complexity and texture in your poems. We will look at a variety of examples to see how poets experiment and play with syntax and how this can create surprising and unexpected lines. We will read, discuss, and write new work, playing with some of the techniques we learn.

This workshop is led by Leonora Simonovis.

Leonora Simonovis is a Venezuelan American poet, editor and educator. Her debut poetry collection, Study of the Raft, won the 2021 Colorado Prize for Poetry. Her work has appeared in DMQ Review, The Hopper, About Place Journal, River Mouth Review, Verse Daily, and others. She has received support from The Poetry Foundation, VONA, Women Who Submit, and the Vermont Studio Center. Leonora is the Reviews Editor at Ecotheo Review and the Currents Editor at terrain.org.

NOTE: Workshop fee is paid on a sliding scale.

NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.

Where: The Poetry Lab, Online Event

Date: Wednesday the 11^th

Time: 5:30 pm

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 11^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

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

Book Club: The Wide Wide Sea via Pacoima Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event

This is an online, mostly fiction book club. We select book titles throughout the year. For the June meeting we will discuss The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook by Hampton Sides.

In July we will be discussing The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession by Michael Finkel.

Where: Pacoima Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday, the 11^th

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Reeling from her father’s death, Zara Pines accepts a ghostwriting job for celebrity chef Jane Bailey. Jane, star of the wildly popular cooking show 30 Bucks Tops, invites Zara to live in her East Hampton home for the summer. Zara doesn’t want to go, but Jane insists.

As the two women create Jane’s book, their attachment grows stronger. Zara, who’s lost and in search of an identity, finds one in the shadow of Jane. She starts wearing Jane’s clothes. And speaking like Jane. And adopting Jane’s mannerisms. Eventually, the line between them blurs and Zara starts to see the side Jane keeps hidden from the cameras.

This dark and twisty novel about fame, lies, and obsession will make even the most open-hearted reader question how safe it is to trust the people they love.

Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday, the 11^th

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: 12511 Moorpark Street, Studio City, CA 91604

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/author-talk-swan-huntley

Kyra Davis Lurie & The Great Mann at Deisel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event

In this poignant retelling of The Great Gatsby, set amongst L.A.’s Black elite, a young veteran finds his way post-war, pulled into a new world of tantalizing possibilities—and explosive tensions.

In 1945, Charlie Trammell steps off a cross-country train into the vibrant tapestry of Los Angeles. Lured by his cousin Marguerite’s invitation to the esteemed West Adams Heights, Charlie is immediately captivated by the Black opulence of L.A.’s newly rechristened “Sugar Hill.”

Settling in at a local actress’s energetic boarding house, Charlie discovers a different way of life—one brimming with opportunity—from a promising career at a Black-owned insurance firm, the absence of Jim Crow, to the potential of an unforgettable romance. But nothing dazzles quite like James “Reaper” Mann.

Reaper’s extravagant parties, attended by luminaries like Lena Horne and Hattie McDaniel, draw Charlie in, bringing the milieu of wealth and excess within his reach. But as Charlie’s unusual bond with Reaper deepens, so does the tension in the neighborhood as white neighbors, frustrated by their own dwindling fortunes, ignite a landmark court case that threatens the community’s well-being with promises of retribution.

Told from the unique perspective of a young man who has just returned from a grueling, segregated war, The Great Mann weaves a compelling narrative of wealth and class, illuminating the complexities of Black identity and education in post-war America.

Kyra Davis Lurie is a New York Times bestselling author and screenwriter. She is the author of The Great Mann, So Much For My Happy Ending, the Sophie Katz mystery series, the Just One Night series and the Pure Sin series. Her books have been published in nine languages across 6 continents. Her first historical fiction novel, The Great Mann, will be available June 10, 2025. Kyra lives in Los Angeles with her husband where they both serve as advisors to their dog, Potus.

NOTE: RSVP at website.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore

Date: Wednesday, the 11^th

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: 225 26^th Street, Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402

Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-06-11/kyra-davis-lurie-author-signing

Music Book Talk: Inna Faliks & Weight in the Fingertips at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Join us for a discussion of Weight in the Fingertips with author Inna Faliks, in conversation with Thomas Small.

Internationally renowned concert pianist Inna Faliks, professor and head of piano at UCLA, reads from her acclaimed memoir, Weight in the Fingertips: A Musical Odyssey from Soviet Ukraine to the World Stage. The reading will be followed by a Q&A with music journalist Thomas Small and a signing.

Reserve your seat on EVENTBRITE!

The memoir has received glowing reviews from many publications including LA Review of Books, and Pianist Magazine states, “Weight in the Fingertips shows that Inna Faliks is not only a great pianist, but also a talented author who manages to portray a character accurately in just a few sentences, convey the mood of a piece of music or describe a funny or sad event. Above all, Weight in the Fingertips is a declaration of love for music.”

Ukrainian-born pianist Inna Faliks has established herself as one of the most communicative, and poetic artists of her generation. She has made a name for herself through commanding performances of standard piano repertoire, as well genre-bending, interdisciplinary projects, and inquisitive work with contemporary composers. Her new memoir, Weight in the Fingertips, A Musical Odyssey from Soviet Ukraine to the World Stage, was published by Globe Pequot Press in October 2023. Find more information at innafaliks.com.

Thomas Aujero Small is the co-author of Experience the Sublime, an upcoming book on the intersection of music and architecture, written in collaboration with acclaimed architectural author Michael Webb and set for publication by ORO Editions in 2026. A longtime contributor to the Paris-based journal Concertonet, Small has been writing about classical music since 2005. He was awarded a prestigious NEA Fellowship in music journalism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. In addition to his work as a writer and cultural advocate, he recently completed a term as Mayor of Culver City, having served on the City Council from 2016 to 2020.

Note: Please RSVP at site.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Wednesday the 11^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Join us for a book discussion and light refreshments! This month, participants will read Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan. Copies of the books are available at the library. For ages 18+.

Refreshments generously provided by the Friends of the Hawthorne and Wiseburn Libraries.

Rufus Leung Gresham, future Earl of Greshambury and son of a former Hong Kong supermodel has a problem: the legendary Gresham Trust has been depleted by decades of profligate spending. The only solution, put forth by Rufus’s scheming mother, is for Rufus to attend his sister’s wedding at a luxury eco-resort and seduce a woman with money. Should he marry Solène de Courcy, a French hotel heiress with honey blond tresses and a royal bloodline? Should he pursue Martha Dung, the tattooed venture capital genius who passes out billions like lollipops? Or should he follow his heart, betray his family, squander his legacy, and finally confess his love to the literal girl next door, the humble daughter of a doctor, Eden Tong?

Join our free game for all ages! Earn badges and prizes as you log reading & activities. Visit Wiseburn Library or LACountyLibrary.org/Summer-Discovery to learn more and sign up!

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Wiseburn Library, LACL

Date: Wednesday, the 11^th

Time: 6:45 pm – 7:45 pm

Address: 5335 W. 135th St., Hawthorne, CA 90250

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13650576

Mike Curato, with Rasheed Newson, & Gaysians at Bel Canto KUBO, Long Beach – In-Person Event

Join us to celebrate Gaysians with Mike Curato, in conversation with Rasheed Newson.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Bel Canto Books KUBO, Long Beach

Date: Wednesday, the 11^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://belcantobooks.net/events

Casey Sherman, with Michelle Dean, & Blood in the Water at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Casey Sherman, in conversation with Michelle Dean, will discuss and sign Blood in the Water: The Untold Story of a Family Tragedy.

A troubled young man, a seven million dollar fortune, and a murder at sea…

From New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman comes a gripping contemporary true crime narrative for everyone fascinated by the Murdaugh murders, about Nathan Carman, who was found floating on a raft in the North Atlantic and was later accused of murdering his mother to gain access to his family’s fortune.

The sun’s reflection danced atop the choppy waters 115 nautical miles south of Martha’s Vineyard as the gigantic freighter Orient Lucky, weighed down by tons of iron and metal scrap materials, sailed over the 9,000 foot -deep Alvin Canyon, better known to mariners as the graveyard of the North Atlantic, when the captain spotted a small life raft floating in the water. On the raft was amateur fisher Nathan Carman, who claimed to have gone out for a fishing trip with his mother when his boat sank seven days earlier. But Carman was in remarkably good shape for being lost at sea for a week, and holes soon began to appear in his story. The mysterious death of Carman’s multi-millionaire grandfather months before had made his mother a wealthy woman. And now that she was missing and presumed dead, Carman stood to inherit a massive amount of money. In May 2023, federal prosecutors charged him with the murders of his grandfather and his mother, and he died of apparent suicide in prison in June 2023.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Wednesday the 11^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/casey-sherman-2025

Write in Night Presented by Women Fiction Writers at Chevalier’s – In-Person Event

Do you have a passion for writing but not enough time to bring your dreams to life?

Do you have an idea in your head that you know deserves to be on paper?

Are you searching for a community of like-minded writers to share your thoughts and ideas with?

Then look no further! Chevalier’s is partnering with the Women’s Fiction Writers Association to bring you a dedicated butt in chair event so you can achieve your ultimate goal: writing! Come armed with your writing tools and ready to work on your own material. There will be no public reading of your work—you have total freedom to create without fear.

Please RSVP so we have enough chairs.

Join us for the first of this monthly series and watch your dreams come alive!

Open to all gender identities!

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Chevalier’s

Date: Wednesday, the 11^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2025-06-11/write-night-presented-womens-fiction-writers-association

Emery Lee, with Edward Underhill, & Don’t Drag This Out at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Emery Lee, in conversation with Edward Underhill, will discuss Don’t Drag This Out.

There will be a book signing to follow the discussion.

NOTE: RSVP for this ticketed event.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Wednesday the 11^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3806 Main St., Culver City, CA 90232

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

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 11^th

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

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

The rich and deeply personal debut memoir by award-winning Palestinian American poet and novelist Hala Alyan, whose experience of motherhood via surrogacy forces her to reckon with her own past, and the legacy of her family’s exile and displacement, all in the name of a new future.

After a decade of yearning for parenthood, years marked by miscarriage after miscarriage, Hala Alyan makes the decision to use a surrogate. In this charged time, she turns to the archetype of the waiting woman—the Scheherazade who tells stories to ensure another dawn—to confront her own narratives of motherhood, love, and inheritance.

As her baby grows in the body of another woman, in another country, Hala finds her own life unraveling—a husband who wants to leave; the cost of past traumas and addictions threatening to resurface; the city of her youth, Beirut, on the brink of crisis. She turns to family stories and communal myths: of grandmothers mapping their lives through Palestine, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon; of eradicated villages and invading armies; of places of refuge that proved only temporary; of men that left and women that stayed; of the contradictions of her own Midwestern childhood, and adolescence in various Arab cities.

Meanwhile, as the baby grows from the size of a poppyseed to a grain of rice, then a lime, and beyond, Hala gathers the stories that are her legacy, setting down the ones that confine, holding close those that liberate. It is emotionally charged, painstaking work, but now the stakes are higher: how to honor ancestors and future generations alike in the midst of displacement? How to impart love for those who are no longer here, for places one can no longer touch?

A stunningly lyrical and brutally honest quest for motherhood, selfhood, and peoplehood, I’ll Tell You When I’m Home is a powerful story of unraveling and becoming, of destruction and redemption, and of homelands lost and recreated.

Hala Alyan is the author of the novels Salt Houses—winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award, and a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize—and The Arsonists’ City, a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. She is also the author of five highly acclaimed collections of poetry, including The Twenty-Ninth Year and The Moon That Turns You Back. Her work has been published by The New Yorker, The Academy of American Poets, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Guernica. She lives in Brooklyn with her family, where she works as a clinical psychologist and professor at New York University.

aja monet is a surrealist blues poet, musician, and cultural worker whose poems sing to us of love, gender, justice, and spirituality. A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, her writing sways between realms where the poetic is both a prayer and a call to action. Her debut poetry collection, My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter, a tribute to women and girls in the pursuit of freedom, earned a 2018 NAACP Image Award nomination for Poetry. In 2023, she released when the poems do what they do, a debut album of jazz and blues poetry, and performed live on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert. In 2024, she earned a Grammy nomination for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album, a testament to her voice, both on the page and in the world. As Artistic Creative Director for the Voices Campaign with V-Day, monet is part of the global movement to end violence against women and girls. monet is a recipient of the EBONY Power 100 Artist in Residence Award, Tribeca Film Festival’s Harry Belafonte Social Justice Award, and the Nelson Mandela Changemaker Award. Her new collection of poetry, Florida Water, will be released in June 2025.

NOTE: See site for details.

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-hala-alyan-presents-ill-tell-you-when-im-home

Full Moon Writing Meditation at Underdog Bookstore – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Join us at Underdog Bookstore during the full moon each month for a guided meditation and writing group. We meet at 7 pm in store and will also be streaming via Zoom for those joining virtually.

All are welcome and encouraged to write and share or listen and reflect during this peaceful meditative time. You are welcome to bring your own mats, writing supplies, spiritual tools etc. Whatever you need to feel comfortable and enjoy the evening!

Limited space so RSVP soon!

Where: Underdog Bookstore

Date: Wednesday, the 11^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 312 South Myrtle Ave., Monrovia, CA 91016

Website: https://www.underdogbookstore.org/events/full-moon-writing-meditation-2-drgnz-9n2yg-t6ae5

Renee Ahdieh, with Dahlia De La Vega, & Park Avenue at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Renne Ahdieh, in conversation with Dahlia De La Vega, will discuss Park Avenue.

Jia Song has always been destined for greatness. As the daughter of Korean bodega owners, she promised herself that she would have every Fifth Avenue luxury when she grew up, and it is all finally within reach. She has just made junior partner at her prestigious Manhattan law firm, she can count on her two best friends to have her back, and she is about to score the ultraluxe gold-on-gold Birkin bag of her dreams. So when her boss asks her to sit in on the hush-hush family implosion of a high-level client, she accepts without hesitation—only to find out that it is one of the most famous Korean families in the world.

The Park family’s net worth is estimated at a billion dollars, and their mega-successful Korean beauty brand has shaped the culture for the past two decades. But the patriarch is filing for divorce while his wife is dying, and their three children can’t stop snapping at one another. With both the family fortune and legacy under threat from the worst kind of scandal, it’s up to Jia to set things right—and she only has a month to do it.

As Jia sorts through the lies and subterfuge, chasing the truth across the globe on private jets, she finds herself falling for this broken, badly-behaving family in ways she can’t quite explain. But it is also becoming clear that the Parks are hiding dark secrets. Can she find the truth in time to protect the Parks’ fortune and secure her success at the firm? And can she hold on to what’s most important, even if it means admitting that what she’s always wanted isn’t what she actually needs?

Date: Wednesday, the 11th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Wednesday the 11^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-06-11/renee-ahdieh-conversation-dahlia-de-la-vega-discusses-signs-park-avenue

Story Salon: Memories…at Art Parlor – In-Person Event

There’s some memories that we want to release…and some to hold onto—like Story Salon!! Let’s remember together on Wednesday 6/11! Tickets can be purchased early with the link in bio or at storysalon.com

Theme: Memories I Held Onto, Memories I Released.

Where: Art Parlor

Date: Wednesday, the 11^th

Time: 7:30 pm

The Anansi Writers Workshop was founded in 1990 by Kamau Daáood, Akilah Oliver, Nafis Nabawi and Anthony Lyons. In 1993, Michael Datcher initiated the development of a three-part format for the workshop. Our tradition of a community workshop began in the late 1960s at the Watts Writers’ Workshop, where World Stage co-founder Kamau Daáood started his writing career. For general information and booking, contact V. Kali, the Anansi Writers Workshop Coordinator, at vkaliflowers@gmail.com.

• 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm — Formal workshop;
• 8:30 pm – 9:00 pm — TBA;
• 9:05 pm – 10:00 pm — Open mic.

Suggested: $10.00 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 11^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm

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

Please spend some time before the workshop learning how to share documents via Zoom. It will keep the session moving if you’re able to make your poem viewable quickly and easily. An instructive video is available on 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 11^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Address: Online event (see site)

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wednesday-night-poetry-workshop-tickets-1399780915399

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.

Featuring theme: TBA

Hosted by John White, with vibes by DJ Hennytee.

Where: East Los Angeles Rising Youth Club

Date: Wednesday, the 11^th

Time: 8 pm – 9:45 pm (Doors at 7:30)

Host Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry welcome featured guest Sammy Herrera.

Sammy Herrera is a Mexican American poet from the San Gabriel Valley who accomplished much as a youth poet by competing in slams and competitions, performing a poem at a TedX event, working alongside the Say Word slam team, and featuring her work on various stages. After taking a break from open mics and performing to focus on her career as a teacher/educator, she makes a name for herself by placing 1st place in both the OC Poetry Slam in October and Pomona Slam in December.

$4 cover fee, cash only See less

$4 cover fee

Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange

Date: Wednesday, the 11^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

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 paperback. https://www.francescaliablock.com/

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 12^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 12^th

Time: 1 pm – 2:30 pm

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

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/saved-story-senior-writing-workshop-1

Mystery Book Discussion: Kamogawa Food Detectives at Palms – Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

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

June 12: Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai

Where: Palms – Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 12^th

Time: 1:30 pm

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

The Book Club is open to any genre of literature, but preference would be given to literary fiction, which is often considered to have greater intellectual and artistic merit.

The first meeting in our spacious and cozy community room. Please come and share with us the books you are reading and help plan the meetings. A successful book club is a group effort where everyone’s opinion counts.

Once we meet, we will go over details, such as how often the club will meet, what time, and the means of communication between members.

Where: John C. Fremont Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 12^th

Time: 2 pm – 3:30 pm

Address: 6121 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038

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

Mystery Book Club: The Golden Spoon at Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join Culver City Julian Dixon Library’s Mystery Book Club to discuss The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell. For adults.

Summary provided by the publisher:

“When production for the tenth season of the hit cooking competition Bake Week begins at the gothic estate of the show’s host and founder, celebrity chef Betsy Martin, everything seems normal. The six contestants are eager to prove their culinary talents over the course of five days, while Betsy struggles for control of the show with her new co-host, the brash and unpredictable Archie Morris. But as the baking competition gets under way, things begin to go awry. At first it’s merely sabotage-sugar replaced with salt, a burner turned to high-but then someone shows up dead and suddenly everyone’s a suspect.”

Where: Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 12^th

Time: 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13477967

In-Person Book Clubat John C. Fremont Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

The John C. Fremont Branch is starting an in-person book club for adult patrons. It intends to be a social gathering where members will read and discuss their favorite book over coffee, tea, and snacks.

The Book Club is open to any genre of literature, but preference would be given to literary fiction, which is often considered to have greater intellectual and artistic merit.

The first meeting in our spacious and cozy community room. Please come and share with us the books you are reading and help plan the meetings. A successful book club is a group effort where everyone’s opinion counts.

Once we meet, we will go over details, such as how often the club will meet, what time, and the means of communication between members.

Where: John C. Fremont Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 12^th

Time: 2 pm – 3:30 pm

Address: 6121 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038

Attendees should bring their own poetry to share, a notebook, and a pen.

Where: Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 12^th

Time: 6 pm

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

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

Community in Conversation on Immigration with the ACLU and Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice: Unbuild Walls (Second Half) at Cellar Door Bookstore – Online Event

Join Cellar Door Bookstore and our local partners with the ACLU for another Community in Conversation, this time focusing on immigration, specifically discussing Silky Shah’s book Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition in two parts, andthen Border & Rule by Harsha Waliain two parts.

Benjamin Wood and Eddie Torres from the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice will lead these monthly book discussions.

Below are the dates and times for the meetings on each book on immigration. The second meeting about the second half of Unbuild Walls will be on Thursday, June 12th at 6:00 pm. It will be held on ZOOM ONLY, so please make sure we have your email address on file so that we can send you the link to participate!

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Thursday the 12^th

Time: 6 pm

Where: Online Zoom Event

Professor Jeremiah Post, the poor handsome man, is in fact standing in the way of Alejandra “Alex” Torres turning Loretta’s, her grandmother’s bar, into a viable business. The hot brainiac who sleeps in one of the upstairs tenant rooms already has all of her Mexican American family’s admiration; she won’t let him have the bar and building she needs to resurrect her career, too.

Alex blowing into town has rocked Jeremiah to his mild-mannered core, but the large, boisterous Torres clan is everything he never had. He doesn’t believe Alex has the best interest of her family, their community, or the bar’s legacy in mind. To protect all three, he’ll stand up to the tough and tattooed bartender with whom he now shares a bedroom wall—and resist the insta-lust they both feel.

But when an old enemy threatens Loretta’s and the surrounding neighborhood, Alex and Jeremiah must combine forces. It will take her might and his mind to save the home they both desperately need.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Thursday the 12^th

Time: 6 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/diverse-romance-book-club-after-hours-milagro-street

Montana Branch Book Club: The Underground Railroad at Montana Branch of Santa Monica Library – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss the novel The Underground Railroad by author Colson Whitehead.

This community-led, monthly book discussion group meets in person at 6 p.m. on the third Thursday of the month at the Montana Branch. This book group discusses a mix of fiction and nonfiction titles, often on topics chosen from current events. To register, email library@santamonica.gov. Supported by the Friends of the Santa Monica Public Library.

Event rescheduled: originally on Thursday, Jun 19, 2025.

Where: Montana Branch Library, SMPL

Date: Thursday the 12^th

Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm

Join us to welcome David Denby, in conversation with Kit Rachlis, to discuss Eminent Jews: Bernstein, Brooks, Friedan, Mailer.

Brilliant, brash, yet soulful, they were 100 percent Jewish and 100 percent American. They upended the restrained culture of their forebears and changed American life. They worked in different fields, and, apart from clinking glasses at parties now and then, they hardly knew one another. But they shared a historical moment and a common temperament. For all four, their Jewish heritage was electrified by American liberty. The results were explosive. As prosperity for Jews increased and anti-Semitism began to fade after World War II, these four creative giants stormed through the latter half of the twentieth century, altering the way people around the world listened to music, defined what was vulgar, comprehended the relations of men and women, and understood the American soul. They were not saints; they were turbulent and self-dissatisfied intellectuals who fearlessly wielded their own newly won freedom to charge up American culture.

Celebratory yet candid, at times fiercely critical, David Denby presents these four figures as egotistical and generous―larger-than-life, all of them, yet vulnerable, even heartbreaking, in their ambition, ferocity, and pride.

David Denby is the New York Times bestselling author of Great Books. His other books include American Sucker and Lit Up. He was a film critic for New York magazine and The New Yorker, where he is now a staff writer. His essays have appeared in The New Republic and The Atlantic. He lives in New York City with his wife, novelist Susan Rieger.

Kit Rachlis is a senior editor at ProPublica. Rachlis has served as editor-in-chief of the L.A. Weekly, senior projects editor at the Los Angeles Times, editor-in-chief of Los Angeles magazine, editor-in-chief of The American Prospect, and senior editor at California Sunday Magazine. He has edited stories that went on to win the Pulitzer Prize, the Livingston Award, the Michael Kelly Award, the George Polk Award, the John Bartlow Martin Award, the PEN USA Award, the James Beard award, and others. Rachlis has also edited a number of books, including The New York Times best-seller The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein.

RSVP at website.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore

Date: Thursday the 12^th

Time: 6:30 pm

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

Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-06-12/david-denby

Trenches Full of Poets Reading Series at Page Against the Machine – In-Person Event

This In-Store Reading Series features Three SoCal Poets:

Rachel Kiskaddon is a writer, artist, and educator who lives and works in Long Beach, CA. Her work is currently featured in anthologies by Moonstone Arts Center, Poet’s Choice, and Millennial Pulp Magazine. Her chapbook, Lavender Lines, was published by Bookleaf in April 2024. Rachel’s writing focuses on relationships, sexuality, mental health, injustice, and women’s experiences. She is currently working on her 2nd chapbook, The Last Time You’ll Hurt Me, to be published this year. Learn more at www.linesoflavender.com

Even Chelsee (they/them) is a working artist living in Long Beach, CA. They are a founding organizer for The Biggest Little Zine Fair, co-host of The Bi Pod, co-editor for Double Text Media, and author of recurring characters, a book of poems. They are usually casually obsessed. Find them on IG: @evansees_

Alma Rosa Azul is a Chicana spoken word poet and community organizer based out of the Inland Empire. She is the co-founder of Barrio Fuerza, host of Barrio Poetry Club open mic and facilitator of Word Blossom writing hour. She’s collaborated through the years with several major platforms including but not limited to The Main Museum, MITÚ, Latina Magazine, L.A Taco, and The Cheech Museum. She resides in San Bernardino, Ca where she proudly organizes and writes political poems as her contribution to the movement towards the people’s liberation.

Taking its name from a Clash lyric, Trenches Full of Poets is a monthly poetry series created, curated, and hosted by Los Angeles-based poets and editors, Nikolai Garcia and Mauricio Andres Moreno with the goal of supporting a diverse array of published SoCal authors and the local independent bookstores that carry their works.

The event takes place on the second Thursday of every month and is always free and open to the public, no tickets or reservations required!

Where: Page Against the Machine

Date: Thursday the 12^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Participants will discuss The Museum Detective by Maha Khan Phillips.

Inspired by a real-life antiquities scandal in Pakistan, this gripping series debut introduces archaeologist Dr. Gul Delani, whose investigation into the discovery of a mummy gets complicated—and personal—when it collides with her years-long search for a missing family member.

Maha Khan Phillips was born in Karachi, Pakistan. She is the author of Beautiful from This Angle, The Mystery of the Aagnee Ruby, and The Curse of Mohenjodaro. She is a multiple award-winning financial journalist and editor who writes across a number of different journals and magazines. She lives in London with her husband and son and frequently visits Pakistan, where she has a keen interest in exploring archaeological sites.

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Thursday the 12^th

Time: 7 pm

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

Undesirability and Her Sisters collates what Barber terms “undesirable” representations of Black female bodies in recent American sculpture, collage, photography, and dance-based performance art by Kara Walker, Wangechi Mutu, Xaviera Simmons, and Narcissister. These works not only engage the visual senses but also incorporate olfactory, haptic, and sonic experiences that challenge traditional interpretations of Blackness and womanhood in art history, Black Studies, feminist and gender studies, dance and performance studies, and queer studies. Instead of transcendental beauty, wholeness, and individual and collective becoming, the perverse Black female figures profiled here eschew sublimation and synthesis as necessary responses to racial and gender subjugation in the past, present, and future.

Through its unique, groundbreaking analysis, this book contributes to the ongoing discussions on the ethics of representation—the capacity to speak and act for oneself, to have significance and impact, and ultimately, to reject acknowledgment.

Tiffany E. Barber is Assistant Professor of African American Art at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Where: Reparations Club

Date: Thursday the 12^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3054 South Victoria Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90018

There will be a book signing to follow the discussion.

NOTE: RSVP for this ticketed event.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Thursday the 12^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3806 Main St., Culver City, CA 90232

Through interviews with the show’s legendary staff and whip-smart analysis, Siegel charts how The Simpsons developed its singular sensibility throughout the ‘90s, one that was at once groundbreakingly subversive for a primetime cartoon and shocking wholesome. The result is a definitive history of The Simpsons’ most essential decade.

Los Angeles-based Ringer senior staff writer Alan Siegel specializes in pop culture retrospectives about the making of iconic movies, television shows, and albums. Over the last 10 years, there’s no subject that he’s written about more than The Simpsons. He’s interviewed dozens of the show’s writers, producers, actors, guest stars, and fans for features that are some of his most popular articles.

Where: Skylight

Date: Thursday the 12^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-alan-siegel-presents-stupid-tv-be-more-funny             

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

Many people believe that morning writing practice is key to finding your voice, your story and, in this case, your community! At the Village Well!

Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning at 8:30 am come join acclaimed author and writing instructor Francesca Lia Block for a brief intro and 40 minutes of free writing on any topic without judgement. Afterwards, you will be able to share a bit about your process and ask Francesca questions about your writing.

About the instructor:

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 paperback. https://www.francescaliablock.com/

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

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Friday the 13^th

Time: 8:30 am – 9:30 am

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

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

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.

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

Free to attend.

NOTE: Free to attend.

Where: Once Upon a Time, Montrose

Date: Friday, the 13^th

Time: 9:30 am

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/pajama-story-time-18

Join us for an interactive bilingual and multicultural storytime session. For ages 0-5.

NOTE: Free to attend.

Where: Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore

Date: Friday, the 13^th

Time: 11 am

Address: 12677 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar, CA 91342

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

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

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.

¡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.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Friday the 13^th

Time: 11 am

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

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

Current Events Nonfiction Book Club: Challenger at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us on the second Friday of every month for the current events nonfiction book club.

June (6/13): Challenger: a true story of heroism and disaster on the edge of space by Adam Higginbotham

RSVP:

Please email studio@lapl.org for participation details.

Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Friday the 13^th

Time: 12 pm

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

Drop in and stay awhile.

Where: Heavy Manners Library

Date: Friday the 13^th

Time: 1 pm – 3 pm

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

Website: https://heavymannerslibrary.com/events

Self-Care Book Club: The Joy of Consent at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Join participants to discuss The Joy of Consent: A Philosophy of Good Sex by Manon Garcia.

A feminist philosopher argues that consent is not only a highly imperfect legal threshold but also an underappreciated complement of good sex.

In the age of #MeToo, consent has become the ultimate answer to problems of sexual harassment and violence: as long as all parties agree to sex, the act is legitimate. Critics argue that consent, and the awkwardness of confirming it, rob sex of its sexiness. But that objection is answered with the charge that opposing the consent regime means defending a masculine erotics of silence and mystery, a pillar of patriarchy.

In The Joy of Consent, French philosopher Manon Garcia upends the assumptions that underlie this very American debate, reframing consent as an ally of pleasure rather than a legalistic killjoy. In doing so, she rejects conventional wisdom on all sides. As a legal norm, consent can prove rickety: consent alone doesn’t make sex licit—adults engaged in BDSM are morally and legally suspect even when they consent. And nonconsensual sex is not, as many activists insist, always rape. People often agree to sex because it is easier than the alternative, Garcia argues, challenging the simplistic equation between consent and noncoercion.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Friday the 13^th

Time: 6 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/self-care-book-club-joy-consent

Book Launch: Bryan Byrdlong, with Jorrell Watkins and Safia Elhillo, & Strange Flowers at Chevalier’s – In-Person Event

Join us for the release of Bryan Byrdlong’s debut poetry collection, STRANGE FLOWERS! Fellow poets Jorrell Watkins and Safia Elhillo will be joining Bryan for an evening of poetry centering the Black experience in America.

The event is free to attend, but RSVPs are highly encouraged. Support your local indie bookstore and consider purchasing the book in advance when you RSVP for this free event. As a token of our thanks, we’ll give you 15% off! Simply select “Event Pickup” during checkout.

Bryan Byrdlong’s debut Strange Flowers fashions a kind of suit, an armor, a disguise out of the folk and pop cultural creation of the zombie. In response to historical prejudice, but more specifically in response to fear of Black people in America, the poetry in this collection uses the idea of the zombie to offer an unbiased view of Black struggle, the zombie being a suit sometimes forced upon Black people and sometimes worn willingly.

Bryan Byrdlong is a Black poet from Chicago, Illinois. His debut poetry collection, Strange Flowers, is out from YesYes Books in 2025. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the Helen Zell Writers Program and has been published in Guernica Magazine, The Kenyon Review, and Poetry Magazine, among others. Bryan received a 2021 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. He is currently a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at USC in Los Angeles. Bryan is a Cave Canem fellow.

Where: Chevalier’s

Date: Friday the 13^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Sign-ups start at 5:30 with @rodharrison66

Music starts at 6 pm

Spoken word and poetry are welcome!

Where: The Den Café

Date: Friday the 13^th

Time: 6 pm (Doors at 5:30 pm)

Address: 125 N. Broadway, Santa Ana, CA 9270

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHuMOcESB9H/?hl=en

Stefanie Leder, with Mimi Leder, & Love, Coffee, and Revolution at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Stefanie Leder, in conversation with Mimi Leder, will discuss Love, Coffee, and Revolution.

Deftly weaving romance, action, and humor with a quest for integrity in an unjust world, Love, Coffee, and Revolution is a timely and relatable coming-of-age novel.

Idealistic and naïve college senior Dee Blum is suffocating. Trapped in the soul-killing plan laid out by her parents—go to law school and become a divorce lawyer—she is desperate for an escape. She’s also desperate for a more meaningful life. When she unexpectedly lands a job organizing eco-tours of coffee farms in Costa Rica, she drops out of school, setting off on a journey of activism and adventure.

In Costa Rica she finds freedom—maybe a little too much of it—and discovers she’s woefully unprepared to navigate another culture and the real world in general. Dee quickly meets not one but two attractive men. Adrián is sexy and fun but politically wrong for progressive Dee. Matías is a globe-trotting revolutionary organizer who sets her mind and heart ablaze.

As Dee pursues her work, she soon discovers that a powerful fair-trade organic coffee network is exploiting the environment and the very people it claims to help. Risking her safety to uncover the depth of their wrongdoings, Dee confronts the real-world implications of her progressive ideals. If she doesn’t act, what will happen to the farmers whose livelihoods—and lives—are at risk?

Multiple Emmy® Award-winning director and producer Mimi Leder is the visionary storyteller behind a number of the most acclaimed dramas in film and television. She has returned as the Director and Executive Producer of the upcoming fourth season of THE MORNING SHOW. Leder directed four episodes of the new season of the hit series which has become one of the most watched series globally, on AppleTV+.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Friday the 13^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/stefanie-leder-mimi-leder

Book Launch: Samia Saliba, with Summer Farrah, & Conspiracy Theories at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event

Samia Saliba’s debut chapbook conspiracy theories explores the world of The X-Files as a mirror of our own world, one which allows us to probe the tensions and circulations between real and unreal, human and alien, living and dead. At once personal and ekphrastic, conspiracy theories asks what it means to believe, how we exist in relation to nature, and what is really worth being afraid of. In the spirit of The X-Files, this chapbook combines humor and eccentricity with grief, reflection, and political critique. conspiracy theories is written for lovers of The X-Files as much as it is for anyone wondering what it means to be a person.

With reading and conversation with Summer Farah.

Where: Stories Books & Café

Date: Friday the 13^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Friday the 13^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby returns with King of Ashes, a Godfather-inspired Southern crime epic and dazzling family drama.

When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.

Roman, a financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he’s forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his brother: himself, and his own particular set of skills.

Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything.

Because everything burns.

This is a ticketed event. Tickets include one entry and one copy of King of Ashes.

NOTE: Ticket purchase at website.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Friday the 13^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Where: Bookman Bookstore

Date: Friday the 13^th

Time: 7:30 pm

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

Elisa Wouk Almino is a writer, editor, and literary translator from the Portuguese. She is currently the editor in chief of Image, the magazine on L.A. style, fashion, and art at the Los Angeles Times. Prior to joining Image, Wouk Almino was a senior editor at Hyperallergic, where she launched and ran the art magazine’s L.A. bureau. She has previously edited and written for various publications including Words Without Borders, n+1, the Paris Review, the New York Review of Books, Rizzoli, Guernica and the Nation. At one point, she gave gallery tours at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and taught art criticism and literary translation at UCLA Extension and Catapult.

CD Eskilson is a trans nonbinary poet and translator. Their work appears in the Kenyon Review, The Offing, Cincinnati Review, among others, and they are the poetry co-editor at Split Lip Magazine. CD’s debut poetry collection, Scream / Queen, is now available from Acre Books. Once, they were in a punk band.

Chris Santiago’s poetry collection Small Wars Manual was recently published by Milkweed Editions. His debut collection Tula was selected by A. Van Jordan as the winner of the Lindquist & Vennum Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. His collaboration with composer Lembit Beecher and ethnographer Todd Lawrence, Say Home, was commissioned by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and received its world premiere in 2019. A Loft Poetry Mentor and Fellow of the McKnight Foundation, the Mellon Foundation/ACLS, and Kundiman, he received his PhD from the University of Southern California and recently joined the Faculty of the School of Critical Studies at CalArts in Santa Clarita, CA. He lives in Pasadena.

Where: Poetic Research Bureau

Date: Friday the 13^th

Time: 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.poeticresearch.com/events/sumarr-reading-series-3

Book Club for Adults: Valient Women at Hacienda Heights Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join participants to discuss the novel Valient Women: the extraordinary American servicewomen who helped win World War II by Lena S. Andrews.

New members are always welcome.  Copies of the Book Club books will be available for pick-up at the Ask Us Desk one month prior to the book club meeting date. 

Where: Hacienda Heights Library, LACL

Date: Saturday the 14^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am

Address: 16010 La Monde St., Hacienda Heights, CA 91745

Where: West Hollywood Library, LACL

Date: Saturday the 14^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13671188

Book Club: The Long Goodbye at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Read the book and join our lively discussion!

The club will meet on the first Saturday in May. There is no December meeting.

June 14: The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday the 14^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

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

Kids Storytime with Aja Munns at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Kids Event

Join us every Wednesday and Saturday for a storytime amongst the cozy bookstacks of Village Well!

This June, we’re thrilled to welcome author Ajia Munns to the store to read her picture book StarLight: When Our Love Becomes More. This is a loving story about friendship following the journey of Flower and Star as they overcome troubling times gaining the insight needed to love who they are just as they are. Simply, the world needs you to be you.

Ajia Munns’ journey began as an artist. She studied psychology at the University of Houston and teaches social and emotional learning to students all over the Los Angeles area. Her warm and meaningful words bring audiences together and invite solace for all her readers.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Saturday the 14^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Join us for a meet-and-greet with Donn Swaby, author of Corey Crumbly and the Lost Amulet!

About the book:

All Corey Crumbly wants is to win the annual Classic Arcade Game Tournament in memory of his dad. However, during a family reunion on the island of Jamaica, he discovers a mysterious amulet off the coast’s coral reef and his mostly uneventful life is turned upside down.

About the author:

Donn Swaby is a professional actor, writer, voice over artist working in television, film, theater, radio, and the internet.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Saturday the 14^th

Time: 12 pm – 1 pm

Mimi Slawoff will discuss and sign Historic Los Angeles Roadsides.

Get your motor running and head out on LA’s iconic roadways (nope, not freeways). The open road is liberating, the anticipation of adventure at every turn. Historic Los Angeles Roadsides will steer you to towns and attractions along classic roadways. Step back in time on Route 66, which zigzags through 31 towns from Claremont to Santa Monica. Admire 19th century architecture in Pasadena, get the scoop on Hollywood history, see the site of a murder-suicide in the Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills, and walk in the steps of LA’s founders downtown. You’ll soak up more than ocean views and sunshine as you cruise along Pacific Coast Highway. Take a stroll on the Redondo Beach horseshoe-shaped pier, tour the Will Rogers ranch in Pacific Palisades, and watch surfers catch a wave in Malibu. The curving, scenic roadways in the Santa Monica Mountains lead to historical ranches along Mulholland Highway, the enchanting Topanga Canyon, and Laurel Canyon, a wild rock and roll scene in the 1960s.

Journalist and Los Angeles native Mimi Slawoff invites you to join her on a tour of LA’s classic roadways. They’re journeys in themselves with historical and whimsical roadside attractions in beaches, mountains, valleys, and deserts.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Saturday the 14^th

Time: 1 pm – 2 pm

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

Join the poets of the Vagabond Poetry Caravan as they complete their 6,500 mile National Poetry Tour on US National Beat Poet Laureate Mark Lipman’s Poetry Bus, Furtherer, and hear stories and poems from their journey across America.

Tour poets include New Mexico Beat Poet Laureate, PW Covington, Maine Beat Poet Laureate Claire Conroy, Westley Heine, Tracey Zee with poets from the New Jersey Poetry Renaissance, Damian Rucci, Alexander Ragsdale, joined by our special guest poet, Richard Modiano.

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Saturday the 14^th

Time: 2 pm – 4 pm (Doors at 1:30 pm)

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

Every year, Lynn spends her summers roaming the forests of the Great Smoky Mountains and watching the fireflies light up the night. As she gets older, she realizes there’s something special about these Great Smoky fireflies. Each night they seem to perform a dazzling synchronized light show!

Where: Once Upon a Time

Date: Saturday the 14^th

Time: 2 pm

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Anne Soon Choi, PhD, author of L.A. Coroner: Thomas Noguchi and Death in Hollywood (Third State Books), is a historian and professor of Asian American Studies and university administrator at California State University, Northridge. Her essay “The Japanese American Citizens League, Los Angeles Politics, and the Thomas Noguchi Case,” on which this book is based, won the 2021 Francis Wheat Prize from the Historical Society of Southern California. Choi has previously served on the faculty of Swarthmore College and the University of Kansas and is an Andrew Mellon Fellow and an American Council of Learned Societies Digital Ethnic Studies Fellow. She lives and writes in Los Angeles, California.

Naomi Hirahara is an Edgar Award-winning author of multiple mystery series, including the Mas Arai novels, which have been published in Japanese, Korean, and French. A former journalist with The Rafu Shimpo, she has also written nonfiction history books, curated exhibitions, and authored the historical mysteries Clark and Division and its USA Today bestselling follow-up Evergreen.

RSVP:

Please email to ltokyo@lapl.org or sign up at the Reference desk.

Where: Little Tokyo Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday the 14^th

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/author-talk-anne-soon-choi-conversation-naomi-hirahira

Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Deep Critique Writing Workshop with DKC – Online Zoom Event

Deep Critique Writing Workshop with Don Kingfisher Campbell (Submit up to 3 poems totaling no more than 150 lines including the subject of or at least mentioning stone or worlds for Four Feathers Press online edition: Stone Worlds by emailing donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59 pm, June 20th)

Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.

Where: Zoom Online, Saturday Afternoon Poetry

Date: Saturday, the 14^th

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm

Address: Online event (see site)

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

YA Pride Book Club: How to Survive a Slasher with author Justine Pucella Winans at Underdog Bookstore – In-Person LGBTQIA Event

Introducing our newest Book Club: YA PRIDE!

Each month we’ll be meeting to discuss a different Young Adult read featuring LGBTQIA+ representation.

Our first pick is How to Survive a Slasher by Justine Pucella Winans, who will be in store to sign and discuss her book with us on June 14th!

You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight meets Scream in this YA slasher that turns classic horror tropes on their heads.

RSVP to guarantee your seat at website.

Stay up to date with our latest announcements on the BookClubs app.

Where: Underdog Bookstore

Date: Saturday the 14^th

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm

Address: 312 S. Myrtle Ave, Monrovia, CA 91016

Website: https://www.underdogbookstore.org/events/yapridejune

Words…(A Literary Reading & Open Mic) at The Glendale Room – In-Person Event

Come hear LA’s finest writers share their words. Fiction, Nonfiction, Memoir, Poetry. featured Spot + 10 Open Mic Spots (6 mins).

Host: Erica Blumfield

Where: The Glendale Room

Date: Saturday the 14^th

Time: 3:30 pm – 5 pm

Address: 127 N. Artsakh Avenue, Glendale, CA 91206

This novel is a modern love story about two childhood friends, Sam, raised by an actress mother in LA’s Koreatown, and Sadie, from the wealthy Jewish enclave of Beverly Hills, who reunite as adults to create video games, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives.

One Book, One Glendale is a beloved community reading event that brings together the Glendale to foster a sense of community through a shared reading experience. By promoting literacy and meaningful dialogue, this program unites our city around a single book.

Copies of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow are available at Glendale Library, Arts & Culture locations. Copies are also available for purchase from Once Upon a Time Book Store. Book signings will follow the presentation.

Where: Glendale Central Library

Date: Saturday the 14^th

Time: 4 pm

Address: 222 E. Harvard St., Glendale, CA 91205

There will also be art by Emily Joyce, readings from Chloe Garcia Roberts and Lisa Locascio Nighthawk, and a musical performance led by Ryan McWilliams.

A poetic journey through the past of the Roman Empire, Agrippina looks toward the future. Agrippina the Younger follows one woman’s study of another, separated by thousands of miles and two millennia but bound by a shared sense of powerlessness. Agrippina was a daughter in a golden political family, destined for greatness—but she hungered for more power than women were allowed. Exhausted by the misogyny of the present, Diana Arterian reaches into the past to try to understand the patriarchal systems of today.

Diana Arterian is the author of Playing Monster :: Seiche and has twice been a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Her writing has appeared in BOMB, The Harvard Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, and elsewhere. A poetry editor for Noemi Press, Arterian writes “The Annotated Nightstand” column at Lit Hub. She lives in Los Angeles.

Chloe Garcia Roberts is a poet and translator from the Spanish and Chinese. She is the author of Fire Eater: A Translator’s Theology, recently named a finalist for the CLMP Firecracker Award and a book of poetry, The Reveal (Noemi Press). Her work has appeared in such publications as the Yale Review, BOMB, Conjunctions, and the Kenyon Review. Collections of her translations of Li Shanyin have been published by New Directions and New York Review of Books. She is the recipient of an NEA fellowship for her forthcoming translation of the novel Carne de Dios by Mexican author Homero Aridjis (University of Arizona Press, 2025).

Lisa Locascio Nighthawk is the chair of the Antioch MFA in Creative Writing and the executive director of the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference. Her novel Open Me was published by Grove Atlantic in 2018. Her work appears in The New York Times, n+1, Tin House, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, and Alta Journal, among other publications, and she writes a newsletter called Not Knowing How (https://lisalocascionighthawk.beehiiv.com/)

Ryan McWilliams is a Los Angeles-based composer, performer, and educator. His music often reflects his scholarly work in Early Music and its relationship to the music-making of today. As a guitarist, Ryan is interested in the composition and performance practices of both Renaissance lute and acoustic steel-string guitar. He is currently an Adjunct Lecturer and DMA candidate in composition at the USC Thornton School of Music.

Emily Joyce’s work often explores hidden systems of nature, the built world, and the cosmos. Since 1999, her work has been included in numerous exhibitions at galleries and museums throughout the United States and in Europe, including the Hammer Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and elsewhere. She is represented by Inman Gallery in Houston, Texas.

Where: Poetic Research Bureau

Date: Saturday the 14^th

Time: 7:30 pm

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

Free entry.

Where: The World Stage Performance Gallery

Date: Saturday the 14^th

Time: 8 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com

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 15^th

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

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

Where: West Los Angeles Regional Branch Library, LAPL 

Date: Sunday the 15^th

Time: 2 pm – 4 pm

Address: 11360 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/banned-books-reading-group-0

Banned Books Reading Group at West Los Angeles Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

We’re so excited to have the OC Poetry Slam team perform their new original pieces in Anaheim! Come to @anaheimlibrary on Sunday, June 15th to witness the team in action, you’ll also get to witness an exclusive 1:1 conversation between the OC Poetry Slam creator @tomisimmonspoetry and Anaheim’s Poet Laureate @writercamille about the importance of literary citizenship and finding our literary communities in Anaheim and the OC.

It’s a free event for the community filled with good poetry, inspiration, community, and helpful advice.

Features: Tomi Simmons, Yana Rose, Pages Matam, Nino Vilagi, Ris Moore, Maestro De Sean

Where: Anaheim Central Library

Date: Sunday the 15^th

Time: 2 pm – 4 pm

Address: 500 West Broadway, Anaheim, CA 92805

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

Bucket List Book Club: To Have and Have Not at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Join participants to discuss To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway.

To Have and Have Not is the dramatic story of Harry Morgan, an honest man who is forced into running contraband between Cuba and Key West as a means of keeping his crumbling family financially afloat. His adventures lead him into the world of the wealthy and dissipated yachtsmen who throng the region and involve him in a strange and unlikely love affair.

In this harshly realistic, yet oddly tender and wise novel, Hemingway perceptively delineates the personal struggles of both the “haves” and the “have nots” and creates one of the most subtle and moving portraits of a love affair in his oeuvre. By turns funny and tragic, lively and poetic, remarkable in its emotional impact, To Have and Have Not is literary high adventure at its finest.

Ernest Hemingway did more to change the style of English prose than any other writer of his time. Publication of The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms immediately established Hemingway as one of the greatest literary lights of the twentieth century. His classic novel The Old Man and the Sea won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. His life and accomplishments are explored in-depth in the PBS documentary film from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, Hemingway. Known for his larger-than-life personality and his passions for bullfighting, fishing, and big-game hunting, he died in Ketchum, Idaho on July 2, 1961.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Sunday the 15^th

Time: 3 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/bucket-list-book-club-have-and-have-not

Paul Cummins Discusses and Signs: It’s about Time and Poetry, Politics and Posterity at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event

Join us to welcome Paul Cummins to discuss: It’s about Time and Poetry, Politics and Posterity.

It’s About Time and Poetry, Politics, and Posterity offer a rich collection of writings on time and meaning in this crazy, mysterious world of ours, writings in Paul’s quiet and unique voice.

Paul Cummins’ poems have appeared in numerous publications including The New Republic, Poetry LA, Whole Notes, Exquisite Corpse, Coracle, Black Buzzard Review, Rattle, Cooweescoowee, Cloudbank, Rockhurst Review, South Loop Review, Absoloose, Perfume River and The Bluebird Word. Also he has won several poetry prizes and has appeared in many anthologies.

In addition, Cummins is an educator, writer, and social entrepreneur. From Stanford (B.A.) to Harvard (M.A.T.) to USC (Ph.D.) to classroom teaching 1960-71, he went on to the founding and co-founding of six schools — including independent schools Crossroads School and TREE Academy, plus Camino Nuevo Public Charter School. From the creation of educational outreach programs such as P.S. Arts and The Coalition for Engaged Education to all his groundbreaking and innovative ventures, Cummins has been a champion for quality education, especially for at-risk, foster, and incarcerated youth.

His publications include an autobiography, Confessions of a Headmaster, three other books on education, two children’s books, four collections of essays, a biography of a holocaust survivor, Dachau Song, and three volumes of poetry.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore

Date: Sunday the 15^th

Time: 4 pm

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

Chris Erskine, Lisa Nehus Saxson, Mark Whicker, Bill Plunkett, and {pages} favorite Tom Hoffarth. These veteran storytellers will share insights from the press box, favorite baseball memories, and thoughts on the DODGERS and the game today. Stick around after the discussion for a book signing and great conversation—perfect for dads, fans, and anyone who loves the national pastime!

All those who RSVP to the event will automatically be entered into our Father’s Day-Eve Raffle to win great Baseball-Themed Book Prizes (must be present to win).

More about Chris Erskine

Daditude, What the Bears Know, contributor to Perfect Eloquence

Chris Erskine is a nationally recognized columnist best known for his long-running work in the Los Angeles Times, where his writing reached more than 600 newspapers nationwide. As an editor, he contributed to two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, and his signature columns captured the humor and heart of suburban life in Southern California.

More about Lisa Nehus Saxon

Contributor to Perfect Eloquence

Lisa Nehus Saxon is a trailblazer in sports journalism, having spent more than two decades covering Major League Baseball, the NFL, and major college sports for Southern California newspapers. Throughout her career, she earned several national awards and quietly championed equal access and pay for women in sports media. Saxon notably worked to close the gender wage gap at the Daily News of Los Angeles. Following her journalism career, she transitioned into education and now serves as a journalism advisor and intervention specialist at Palisades Charter High School.

More about Mark Whicker

Don Drysdale: Up and In: The Life of a Dodgers Legend

Mark Whicker launched his sports writing career in 1974 and became a fixture in Southern California journalism, writing for SCNG newspapers from 1987 until his retirement in 2022. His distinguished work earned him a place in the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame in 2020.

More about Bill Plunkett

L.A. Story: Shohei Ohtani, The Los Angeles Dodgers, and a Season for the Ages

A graduate of Michigan State with a degree in journalism, Bill Plunkett has worked as a sportswriter since 1983. He has covered Southern California sports since 1987 and has been with the Orange County Register since 1999, primarily reporting on the Dodgers and the Angels.

More about Tom Hoffarth

Perfect Eloquence: An Appreciation of Vin Scully

Date: Sunday the 15^th

Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm

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

Taking place over the course of one night, President Lincoln mourns the death of his young son Willie Lincoln in his crypt and unwittingly enters a supernatural realm inhabited by spirits unable to move on due to unresolved attachments.

They serve as a warning to the president, persuading him to allow his young son to move on to the afterlife, lest he loose himself to grief and remain unable to move on.

Where: Chevalier’s

Date: Sunday the 15^th

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

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

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Sunday the 15^th

Time: 5 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-maxa75kx

Book Launch: Cassidy Krug & Resurface at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Join us for the launch of Cassidy Krug’s book Resurface: A Guide to Navigating Life’s Biggest Transitions!

Krug has been through many transitions in her life, from Olympic diver to brand innovation strategist to author, and she’s here to help guide us through those challenges. Joining Krug is Kate Hansen, a fellow Olympian and current-day Dodgers host. The two will discuss strategies to deal with life’s transitions from the book Adam Grant (Hidden Potential) calls “an illuminating and inspiring read.”

Reserve your seat on EVENTBRITE!

Transitions—planned or unplanned—are an inevitable part of life, whether you’re graduating from college and trying to decide what’s next, coping with divorce, putting the pieces back together after a death or a diagnosis, moving to a new city, or thinking about leaving one career path for another. No one knows this better than former Olympic diver, Cassidy Krug, who in 2012 competed in the London Olympics and then retired from diving altogether. After dedicating her life to a single passion and pursuit, Krug had to figure out what to do next after she quit.

In her new book, Resurface: A Guide to Navigating Life’s Biggest Transitions, Krug weaves her own story with research and interviews with individuals from all walks of life who are navigating major transitions.

As inevitable as transitions are, they can still be intimidating. You’re venturing from the familiar into the unfamiliar, and that journey is often murky and filled with moments of uncertainty, grief, and self-doubt. In Resurface, Krug connects with dozens of others who have experienced major life transitions, discovering fascinating common ground between a Buddhist monk and a queer sex therapist; a recent divorcee and a quadriplegic skydiver; a record-setting marathoner and a salon-owner navigating menopause. Through these interviews, she built a blueprint with easy-to-follow steps for anyone who is going through or considering a major life change. To navigate change with grace, you must:

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Sunday the 15^th

Time: 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

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

Book Launch: Tourmaline & Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson at Reparations Club – In-Person LGBTQIA Event

Black transgender luminary Tourmaline brings to life the first definitive biography of the revolutionary activist Marsha P. Johnson, one of the most important and remarkable figures in LGBTQIA+ history, revealing her story, her impact, and her legacy.

Written with sparkling prose, Tourmaline’s richly researched biography Marsha finally brings this iconic figure to life, in full color. We vividly meet Marsha as both an activist and artist: She performed with RuPaul and with the internationally renowned drag troupe The Hot Peaches. She was a muse to countless artists from Andy Warhol to the band Earth, Wind & Fire. And she continues to inspire people today.

Marsha didn’t wait to be freed; she declared herself free and told the world to catch up. Her story promises to inspire readers to live as their most liberated, unruly, vibrant, and whole selves.

Tourmaline is an award-winning artist, filmmaker, writer, and activist whose work is dedicated to Black trans joy and freedom. She is a TIME 100 Most Influential Person in the World awardee and a Guggenheim Fellow. She has frequently appeared on ABC News, as well as in the New York Times and Vogue. Her art is in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tate, and the Getty Museum. She created the critically acclaimed film Happy Birthday, Marsha!, and she has directed Pride campaigns for Dove, Marc Jacobs, and Reebok. She previously worked with Queers for Economic Justice and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. She lives in Miami, Florida.

Sasheer Zamata is a comedian, actress, and writer who can be seen in Marvel’s Agatha All Along, Netflix’s Exploding Kittens, ABC’s Home Economics, and Woke on Hulu. She was a cast member on Saturday Night Live for four seasons and has appeared on This American Life and Late Night with Stephen Colbert. Her latest standup special, The First Woman, is available to stream on Hulu, and she co-hosts a weekly podcast, Best Friends with Nicole Byer.

Zamata also serves as the celebrity ambassador for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and works with the Women’s Rights Project, which seeks to break down gender biases and ensure equal economic opportunities, educational equity, and an end to gender-based violence.

Additional credits include Jerry Seinfeld’s Netflix comedy Unfrosted, Lionsgate’s romantic comedy The Weekend, and the horror comedy Spree. Zamata currently resides in Los Angeles.

Where: Reparations Club

Date: Sunday the 15^th

Time: 6 pm

Address: 3054 South Victoria Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90016

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/book-launch-marsha-w-tourmaline-tickets-1384333000269?aff=oddtdtcreator

Mobile Data Mag Open Mic + Feature Series at HI Los Angeles Santa Monica Hostel – In-Person Event

Mobile Data Mag is a digital literary journal that showcases writers from California and beyond.

This is the 4^th event in the 2025 Summer Series at HI Santa Monica Hostel in Santa Monica.

Featuring:

Juan Amador is the author of Pimping My Trauma.

Pam Concepcion is the host of the La Palabra Reading Seriesand author of a forthcoming collection.

Where: HI Los Angeles Santa Monica Hostel

Date: Sunday the 15^th

Time: 7 pm – 9:30 pm

Developmental editor and teacher Jeanne De Vita will lead this book club discussion of Single Player by author Tara Tai.

This book club focuses on examining popular romance novels from the writer’s perspective.

No membership is necessary, but RSVP is required.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Sunday the 15^th

Time: 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm

Address: 3806 Main St., Culver City, CA 90232