Robertson Writer Group at Robertson Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Writing a book, poem, or screenplay? Need deadlines? Want constructive feedback? Then this is the place for you.
Bring 5 – 10 double spaced typed pages to read. Everyone will get a chance to read.
RSVP:
This group mostly meets in person, but email rbrtsn@lapl.org if you’d prefer to join via Zoom.
Where: Robertson Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 11 am
Address: 501 S. Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/robertson-writers-group-1
Pursuing Your Passions with Poetry at Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Marie Kordus, author of Idea Poetry and founder of HiBrowsing.com, presents a path for the pursuit of any worthy goal through her poetic, illustrations and artistic drawings. The timeless thought-provoking illustrations coupled with words offer inspiration that will inspire you on the journey of your life for the years to come. Join the author as she will discuss how to improve your life, your goals and your dreams.
Where: Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 1 pm – 2 pm
Address: 6250 Sylmar Ave., Van Nuys, CA 91401
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/robertson-writers-group-1
Journaling for Adults at Sunkist- La Puente Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Dive into the world of journaling to boost your mindfulness, memory, and communication skills. Learn where to begin to make it a habit and practice with writing exercises. For adults.
All materials will be provided.
Where: Sunkist-La Puente Library, LACL
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 840 Puente Ave., La Puente, CA 91746
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13584300
Book Talk: Dari Lavelle, with Dahlia De La Vega, & Aftertaste at Chevalier’s – In-Person Event
Dari Lavelle, in conversation with Dahlia De La Vega, will discuss Aftertaste.
What if you could have one last meal with someone you’ve loved, someone you’ve lost? Combining the magic of Under the Whispering Door with the high-stakes culinary world of Sweetbitter, Aftertaste is an epic love story, a dark comedy, and a synesthetic adventure through food and grief.
Konstantin Duhovny is a haunted man. His father died when he was ten, and ghosts have been hovering around him ever since. Kostya can’t exactly see the ghosts, but he can taste their favorite foods. Flavors of meals he’s never eaten will flood his mouth, a sign that a spirit is present. Kostya has kept these aftertastes a secret for most of his life, but one night, he decides to act on what he’s tasting. And everything changes.
Kostya discovers that he can reunite people with their deceased loved ones—at least for the length of time it takes them to eat a dish that he’s prepared. He thinks his life’s purpose might be to offer closure to grieving strangers, and sets out to learn all he can by entering a particularly fiery ring of Hell: the New York culinary scene. But as his kitchen skills catch up with his ambitions, Kostya is too blind to see the catastrophe looming in the Afterlife. And the one person who knows Kostya must be stopped also happens to be falling in love with him.
Set in the bustling world of New York restaurants and teeming with mouthwatering food writing, Aftertaste is a whirlwind romance, a heart-wrenching look at love and loss, and a ghost story about all the ways we hunger—and how far we’d go to find satisfaction.
Daria Lavelle is an American fiction writer. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, and raised in the New York metro area, her work explores themes of identity and belonging through magic and the uncanny. Her short stories have appeared in The Deadlands, Dread Machine, and elsewhere, and she holds degrees in writing from Princeton University and Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, children, and goldendoodle, all of whom love a great meal almost as much as she does. Learn more at DariaLavelle.com.
Dahlia De La Vega is the LA-based bookstagrammer and book reviewer behind ofpagesandprint on social media. She is a voracious reader and audiobook devourer and created ofpagesandprint to support fantasy, romance, and historical fiction authors.
RSVP
Where: Chevalier’s
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Author Event: Matt Sedillo & Mexican Style at Mexican Cultural Institute – In-Person Event
Join us for a book reading presentation with Matt Sedillo and his recent publication, Mexican Style.
Amazon says:
Following up on City on the Second Floor and Mowing Leaves of Grass, Sedillo returns to FlowerSong Press with Mexican Style written with his signature dynamic urgency and brimming with historic references and allusions this latest collection represents Sedillo’s most ambitious work to date. In this collection Sedillo explores themes of struggle and identity and devotion to a cause and a people. Throughout we find a different more playful side of Sedillo with nods, homages, reinterpretations in this collection to the works of Rulfo, Marquez, Bunuel, Gogol Varda just to name a few. This book is an adventure.
Where: Mexican Cultural Institute
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 4837 E. 3rd St., Los Angeles, CA 90022
Book Club: They Called Us Enemy via Sherman Oaks Martin Pollard Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new frontiers in Star Trek, he woke up as a four-year-old boy to find his own birth country at war with his father’s—and their entire family forced from their home into an uncertain future.
In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten “relocation centers,” hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard.
They Called Us Enemy is Takei’s firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother’s hard choices, his father’s faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.
What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide? When the world is against you, what can one person do? To answer these questions, George Takei joins co-writers Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott and artist Harmony Becker for the journey of a lifetime.
Please email shrmno@lapl.org for the Zoom link.
Where: Sherman Oaks Martin Pollard Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/sherman-oaks-book-club-they-called-us-enemy
Katelyn Doyle, with Chris Baio, & Total Dreamboat at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Katelyn Doyle, in conversation with Chris Baio, will discuss Total Dreamboat.
Hope Lanover needs a vacation. Her relationship has imploded, her creative ambitions have flatlined, and she can’t seem to locate the badass girl she used to be. So when her best friend invites her on a luxury cruise, she goes along with it, despite decidedly not being a cruise person.
Felix Segrave, a sober, determinedly single, workaholic chef, hates leaving his restaurant and routine. But when his parents surprise him and his sisters with cruise tickets, he can’t say no—he’s disappointed them too many times in his troubled past.
Hope and Felix are prepared to grin and bear it…until they lock eyes at check-in. Suddenly ten days in the Caribbean doesn’t seem so bad.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/katelyn-doyle-conversation-chris-baio-discusses-signs-total-dreamboat
Amy Dawes, with Teddy Hamilton, & Seven Year Itch at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Amy Dawes, in conversation with Teddy Hamilton, will discuss her new romance novel, Seven Year Itch.
A book signing will follow the event.
Email store for stand-by seating, as currently SOLD OUT.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 3806 Main St., Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://www.therippedbodice.com/events-and-tickets
Rupo Open Mic at Back to the Grind in Riverside – In-Person Event
RUPO Open Mic is every Monday Night at Back to the Grind in Riverside.
Every Monday from 7 pm to 9 pm. Sign-ups are at 6:30 pm and in person only, $4 cash admission. See you then!
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where: Back to the Grind, Riverside
Date: Monday the 23rd –
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92501
Website: https://www.facebook.com/backtothegrind
At Skylight: Diana Arterian, with Ruth Madievsky, & Agrippina the Younger at Skylight – In-Person Event
Diana Arterian, in conversation with Ruth Madievsky, will discuss Agrippina the Younger.
This poetic journey through the past of the Roman Empress 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. In lyric verse and prose poems, she traces Agrippina’s rise, interrogating a life studded with intrigue, sex, murder, and manipulation. Arterian eagerly pursues Agrippina through texts, ruins, and films, exhuming the hidden details of the ancient noblewoman’s life. These poems consider the valences of patriarchy, power, and the archive to try to answer the question: How do we recover a woman erased by history?
Diana Aterian is the author of the poetry collection Playing Monster: Seiche and has twice been a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Her writing has appeared in BOMB, The Georgia 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.
Ruth Madievsky is the author of the national bestselling novel, All-Night Pharmacy, winner of the California Book Award and the National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction, and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Her work appears in The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, The Cut, Harper’s Bazaar, and elsewhere. Originally from Moldova, she lives in Los Angeles, where she works as a clinical pharmacist.
Where: Skylight
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-diana-arterian-presents-agrippina-younger
Memoir Launch: Kathy Eldon, with Sophie Shrand, & Boundless at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Boundless is more than a book—it’s a creative, courageous companion for navigating life’s wild terrain. Written amidst personal and planetary chaos—including evacuations and environmental crises—Kathy Eldon and her “Noisy Spirits” offer a roadmap back to resilience, purpose, and joy. With whimsical rhymes, soulful reflections, delicious doodles, and evocative prompts, Boundless is an invitation to transform ourselves—and the world around us.
Kathy’s “Noisy Spirits” are inner whispers, muses and intuitive messages that first came through her in rhyme, image, and insight during the stillness of the pandemic. Whimsical and wise, they became the co-authors of Boundless. In a post-pandemic, politically divisive, simultaneously underwater-and-on-fire world, people are more overwhelmed than ever. Boundless is a beacon—a call to rediscover our inner wisdom, reconnect with what matters, and reimagine what’s possible. It is a love letter to the future we’re still capable of creating.
Kathy Eldon is an award-winning filmmaker and author described by Christiane Amanpour as “a powerhouse who has turned her personal tragedy into a megablast for creative energy and vision.” After the death of her son, 22-year-old Reuters photojournalist Dan Eldon, Kathy turned grief into a global movement by founding Creative Visions, a United Nations NGO empowering over 400 projects and 100 million people through storytelling and media.
Sophie Shrand is an award-winning science educator, comedian, actor, and entrepreneur with degrees in Behavioral Neuroscience and Theatre, who has brought science comedy to hundreds of classrooms across the country, thousands of families at world-renowned museums, and more than 2 million children worldwide.
Note: Please RSVP at site.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events
Kelly Ramsey & Wildfire Days: A Woman, A Hotshot Crew, and the Burning American West at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
In the exhilarating spirit of Wild and A Walk in the Park, an adventure-filled memoir of one woman’s struggle to succeed as a wildland firefighter on an elite, male-dominated crew as they battle some of the fiercest wildfires in the West.
When Kelly Ramsey drives over a California mountain pass to join an elite firefighting crew, she’s terrified that she won’t be able to keep up with the intense demands of the job. Not only will she be the only woman on this hotshot crew and their first in ten years, she’ll also be among the oldest. As she trains relentlessly to overcome the crew’s skepticism and gain their respect, megafires erupt across the West, posing an increasing danger both on the job and back home. In vivid prose that evokes the majesty of Northern California’s forests, Kelly takes us on the ground to see how major wildfires are fought and to lay bare the psychological toll, the bone-deep weariness, and the unbreakable camaraderie that emerge in the face of nature’s fury.
Despite the wear and tear of her rookie year in fire, Kelly gears up for a second season, determined to prove that not only can a woman survive this work, she can excel. But when her plans to marry her partner start to crumble and sparks fly with a fellow crew member, Kelly wrestles with whether she’s truly outgrown the self-destructive patterns she’s learned from her father, whose drinking and itinerant ways haunt her. And as the season wears on, she discovers how tenuous “belonging” can be amid ever-changing crew dynamics.
In this vivid, visceral, and intimate memoir, Kelly wrestles with the immense power of fire for both destruction and renewal, confronted with the questions: Which fires do you fight, and which do you let burn you clean?
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91101
Monday Night Fiction Workshop via Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – Online Zoom Event
This free Monday Night Community Writing Workshop led by Raquel Baker is a workshop in which participants are asked to bring copies of 2-3 pages of fiction to read, and to use for critique and discussion. Registration is required.
Raquel Baker earned a PhD in English Literary Studies from the University of Iowa and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Postcolonial and Transnational Literatures at California State University Channel Islands, teaching courses on creative writing and contemporary African literatures. Raquel has published poetry in Africology and The Arrow; fiction in Enculturation, The Daily Palette, The Womanist, and Crux; and non-fiction in Little Village; and has done readings with the Ventura County Poetry project. Raquel is passionate about discussing everything related to the craft and social significance of literature!
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – Online event
Date: Monday the 23rd
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monday-night-fiction-workshop-tickets-1416768064419
Virtual Book Club: Wild Dark Shore via La Crescenta Library, LACL – Online Event
Join us weekly on Zoom on Tuesday mornings at 11AM for the Virtual Book Club. In June we will be discussing Wild Dark Shore, a novel by Charlotte McConaghy. For adults.
Each week we read and discuss 1/4 of the book. Please see the weekly discussion breakdown below.
Week 5: June 24: Page 226 to the end of the book.
Where: Virtual Event, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13843940
Booksellers Book Club: The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece at Stevenson Ranch Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join us and enjoy a lively book discussion and an art project. All supplies will be provided. For adults.
Participants will discuss The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks.
The Academy Award-winning actor and bestselling author presents this entertaining, enlightening and delightful thought-provoking novel about the making of a star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film based on a series of comic books that depict the changes in America and American culture since World War II.
Where: Stevenson Ranch Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 11:30 am – 1 pm
Address: 25950 The Old Rd., Stevenson Ranch, CA 91381
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13744465
Author Talk: Katherine Applegate & Odder via LACL – Online Event
Join us as award-winning author and summer reading champion Katherine Applegate talks to us about her enthusiastically heartwarming novel in verse, Odder.
Everyone wants to meet Odder, the Queen of Play. Odder spends her days off the coast of central California, practicing her underwater acrobatics and spinning the quirky stories for which she’s known. She’s a fearless daredevil, curious to a fault. But when Odder comes face-to-face with a hungry great white shark, her life takes a dramatic turn, one that will challenge everything she believes about herself―and about the humans who hope to save her.
Katherine Applegate’s Odder is inspired by the true story of a Monterey Bay Aquarium program that pairs orphaned otter pups with surrogate mothers. This poignant and humorous tale told in free verse examines bravery and healing through the eyes of one of nature’s most beloved and charming animals.
Where: Virtual Event, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 1 pm – 2 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13803070
Journaling for Adults at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library LACL – In-Person Event
Dive into the world of journaling to boost your mindfulness, memory, and communication skills. Learn where to begin to make it a habit and practice with writing exercises.
All materials will be provided.
Where: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: 17906 S Avalon Blvd., Carson, CA 90746
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13435177
Agoura Readers Book Club: Isola at Agoura Hills Library LACL – In-Person Event
Join us to discuss Isola by Allegra Goodman. For adults.
Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. That journey takes a unexpected turn when Marguerite, accused of betrayal, is brutally punished and abandoned on a small island. It’s a historical epic of love, faith, and defiance from the bestselling author of Sam.
Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: 29901 Ladyface Ct., Agoura Hills, CA 91301
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13586904
Spoiler Alert! The Venice Library Young Adult Book Club: One of Us Is Lying at Venice – Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – Online YA Event
The Spoiler Alert! Young Adult Book Club is a teen book club where, each month, a different book will be chosen in the hopes of trying new genres, carousing the library catalog, and, of course, spilling those spoilers.
This month’s book is, One of Us is Lying by Karen M McManus. Copies of the book are available at the Circulation Desk for check out!
Recommended for ages 14-18 only.
RSVP:
Email Librarian Lisa at lisa.nena@lapl.org to sign up to receive a Zoom invitation.
Where: Venice – Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Event
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/spoiler-alert-venice-library-young-adult-book-club-3
Online Book Club: All the Sinners Bleed at Venice – Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us for a thoughtful discussion of the current selection and share other great books with the group. New members welcome! Copies available at the front desk.
June 24: All the Sinners Bleed, S.A. Cosby
RSVP
Where: Venice – Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 5 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/online-book-club-0
LGBTQ+ Book Club Discussing The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde at West Hollywood Library, LACL – In-Person & Online Hybrid LGBTQ+ Event
Join the LGBTQ+ Book Club for a hybrid (in-person and online) discussion of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. For adults.
This is a hybrid event and will be hosted in-person in the West Hollywood Library Community Meeting Room as well as on Zoom. Please register at the link below to receive the link to the meeting via email.
https://library-lacounty-gov.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0pd-Goqz4uGNNbzVuW720zsRrGxTK1VeLG
West Hollywood Library’s LGBTQ+ Book Club meets on the last Tuesday of the month to discuss literary works of relevance and interest to the LGBTQ+ community.
Please contact the library to borrow a print copy of the book. eBook and eAudiobook are available through hoopla digital (no wait) and Libby app/OverDrive.
Summary provided by the publisher:
Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence. The Picture of Dorian Gray was a succès de scandale. Early readers were shocked by its hints at unspeakable sins, and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde at the Old Bailey in 1895.
Where: West Hollywood Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13020802
Hooked on Books Book Club: Personal Librarian at Quartz Hill Library LACL – In-Person Event
Join us as we compare notes about The Personal Librarian, the little-known story of Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, who became one of the most powerful women in New York despite keeping a dangerous secret. For adults.
Copies are available at the Customer Service desk and newcomers are always welcome!
Where: Quartz Hill Library, LAC
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 5040 W. Ave. M 2, Quartz Hill, CA 93536
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13586927
Iacoboni Book Club: Travels with Charlie at Angelo M. Iacoboni Library LACL – In-Person Event
Join us for our monthly book club! This month we’ll be discussing Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. Copies of the book will be available at the customer service desk. This program is for adults.
Where: Angelo M. Iacoboni Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 4990 Clark Ave., Lakewood, CA 90712
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13572935
Phy-Sci Book Club: Determined (first half) at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join participants to discuss Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will (first half of the book) by Robert M. Sspolsky.
This month the discussion will cover the first half of the book.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 6 pm
Where: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/phy-sci-book-club-determined-first-half-book
Agoura Readers Book Club: Isola at Agoura Hills Library LACL – Online Event (Online Version of the In-person Book Club)
Join us online to discuss Isola by Allegra Goodman.
Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian—an enigmatic and volatile man—spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. That journey takes a unexpected turn when Marguerite, accused of betrayal, is brutally punished and abandoned on a small island. It’s a historical epic of love, faith, and defiance from the bestselling author of Sam.
To attend this virtual meeting, contact Nina Hull at 818-889-2278 or nhull@library.lacounty.gov
Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 29901 Ladyface Ct., Agoura Hills, CA 91301
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13586930
The Mystery Book Club at Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Contact the branch for this month’s title. Feel free to email pvista@lapl.org or call 310-437-6680.
Where: Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 6400 Playa Vista Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90094
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-4
Daria Lavelle, with Jordan Moblo. & Aftertaste at Diesel, A Bookstore – In- Person Event
Daria Lavelle, in conversation with Jordan Moblo, will discuss and sign Aftertaste.
Konstantin Duhovny is a haunted man. His father died when he was ten, and ghosts have been hovering around him ever since. Kostya can’t exactly see the ghosts, but he can taste their favorite foods. Flavors of meals he’s never eaten will flood his mouth, a sign that a spirit is present. Kostya has kept these aftertastes a secret for most of his life, but one night, he decides to act on what he’s tasting. And everything changes.
Kostya discovers that he can reunite people with their deceased loved ones—at least for the length of time it takes them to eat a dish that he’s prepared. He thinks his life’s purpose might be to offer closure to grieving strangers, and sets out to learn all he can by entering a particularly fiery ring of Hell: the New York culinary scene. But as his kitchen skills catch up with his ambitions, Kostya is too blind to see the catastrophe looming in the Afterlife. And the one person who knows Kostya must be stopped also happens to be falling in love with him.
Set in the bustling world of New York restaurants and teeming with mouthwatering food writing, Aftertaste is a whirlwind romance, a heart-wrenching look at love and loss, and a ghost story about all the ways we hunger—and how far we’d go to find satisfaction.
Daria Lavelle is an American fiction writer. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, and raised in the New York metro area, her work explores themes of identity and belonging through magic and the uncanny. Her short stories have appeared in The Deadlands, Dread Machine, and elsewhere, and she holds degrees in writing from Princeton University and Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, children, and goldendoodle, all of whom love a great meal almost as much as she does.
Jordan Moblo is the Executive Vice President of Creative Acquisitions and IP Management for Universal Studio Group. Prior to joining Universal, Jordan oversaw similar divisions at both Netflix and Disney Television. Jordy’s bookstagram account @jordys.book.club- has established him as an influential voice in the publishing world.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-06-24/daria-lavelle-jordan-moblo-author-signing
Sci-Fi Fantasy Book Club: Someone You Can Build a Nest In at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell.
Shesheshen has made a mistake fatal to all monsters: she’s fallen in love.
Shesheshen is a shapeshifter, who happily resides as an amorphous lump at the bottom of a ruined manor. When her rest is interrupted by impolite monster hunters, she constructs a body from the remains of past meals: a metal chain for a backbone, borrowed bones for limbs, and a bear trap as an extra mouth.
Badly hurt by the hunters, Shesheshen’s nursed back to health by Homily, a warm-hearted human. Homily is kind and would make a great co-parent: an ideal place to lay Shesheshen’s eggs so their young can devour Homily from the inside out. But as they grow close, Shesheshen realizes that eating her girlfriend isn’t an option.
Just as Shesheshen’s about to confess her identity, Homily reveals something else: she’s hunting a shapeshifting monster that supposedly cursed her family. Has Shesheshen seen it anywhere?
Shesheshen didn’t curse anyone, so now she has to figure out why Homily’s twisted family thinks she did. As Shesheshen’s hunt for the monster becomes increasingly deadly, the bigger challenge remains: learning how to build a life with, rather than in, the woman she loves.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd.,1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events
Open Mic Readings Every Tuesday at the Aftermath Bar, Sherman Oaks – In-Person Event
CALLING ALL WRITERS! Every Tuesday we’ll be having Open Mic Readings open to the public! Read your poems, fiction, and spoken word at our open mic reading EVERY TUESDAY NIGHT from 7 pm – 10 pm!
Read your poetry, fiction, spoken word, or lyrics.
Free event. 21+
Note: Please RSVP at site.
Where: The Aftermath Bar
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 7 pm – 10 pm
Address: 14537 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
Website: https://www.instagram.com
Book Celebration: Alix Dick and Antero Garcia & The Cost of Being Undocumented at Bel Canto Books, KUBO Long Beach – In-Person Event
Bel Canto Books is delighted celebrate the book launch of The Cost of Being Undocumented: One Woman’s Reckoning With America’s Inhumane Math by Alix Dick and Antero Garcia.
Alix Dick is an artist and storyteller living in Los Angeles. Her contributions as a producer and filmmaker have screened at film festivals across the globe. She co-edits the Substack La Cuenta, an online publication centering the voices and perspectives of individuals labeled undocumented in the US.
Antero Garcia is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University and vice president of the National Council of Teachers of English. He has authored or edited more than a dozen books about schooling in America. He co-edits the Substack La Cuenta.
RSVP (plus donation of any amount) required. Please stay home if you feel sick.
Where: Bel Canto Books
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 3976 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach, CA 90807
Jeffrey Konvitz & at The Circus of Satan: Murder, Revenge, and the Rise of Organized Crime at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Jeffrey Konvitz will discuss The Circus of Satan: Murder, Revenge, and the Rise of Organized Crime.
Fifty years following the publication of his horror cult classic The Sentinel (7 million copies in print), legendary horror author Jeffrey Konvitz returns with an edge-of-your-seat historical crime novel of real-life horror that offers up a shocking reflection of our turbulent times. Old and new fans alike will delight in this sprawling epic of organized crime spanning five decades of debauchery from the seediest corners of New York, Chicago, and beyond.
Jeffrey Konvitz is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Sentinel (Simon and Schuster). He also wrote its bestselling sequel, The Guardian (1979), and a third novel Monster: A Tale of Loch Ness (1982). Konvitz is an entertainment attorney, screenwriter and producer. In the 1980s and 90s, he became one of the top independent production executives in Hollywood, where he still resides to this day.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/jeffrey-konvitz
Community Action Fundraiser: From Kindred Creation to Intersectional Solidarity at Chevalier’s – In-Person Event
Join us for an important and timely conversation around solidarity across marginalized and historically oppressed groups led by author, organizer, and designer Aida Mariam Davis, author of Kindred Creations, and Dr. Chaya Crowder.
This urgent conversation will also serve as a community fundraiser for the National Day Laborers Organizing Network! We encourage you to donate any amount that seems feasible to you directly to the NDLON. Share a copy of the donation confirmation, and we will give you 10% off the book!
The event is free to attend but RSVPs are highly encouraged.
Solidarity does not require sameness. Solidarity is doing something because of an understanding that when other marginalized groups are targeted, that harm can affect your community as well. Similarly, when certain marginalized communities win, often, we all win. Our struggles are intersectional in nature. This current moment calls for re-connection and actively working to create a world worthy of our children requires recalling the dignity and distinction of the African way of life.
Authors Aida Mariam Davis and Chaya Crowder are coming together for a community conversation on how the themes that they write about connect to how we as Black people can show up in the midst of targeted attacks against immigrants and other marginalized groups. We invite you to join this community conversation as we begin to imagine a path to Black freedom, Black futures, and a blueprint to intergenerational Black joy and dignity.
See site for further details.
Where: Chevalier’s
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Nonfiction Book Club: Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Join participants to discuss Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant: A Memoir by Curtis Chin.
Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone—from the city’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples—could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city’s spiraling misfortunes; and where—between helpings of almond boneless chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and some of his own, less-savory culinary concoctions—he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family, and to himself.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2025-06-24/nonfiction-book-club
Becky Aikman, with Mary Pilon, & Spitfires: the American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger During World War II at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
The heart-pounding true story of the daring American women who piloted the most dangerous aircraft of World War II through the treacherous skies of Britain.
They were crop dusters and debutantes, college girls and performers in flying circuses-all of them trained as pilots. Because they were women, they were denied the opportunity to fly for their country when the United States entered the Second World War. But Great Britain, desperately fighting for survival, would let anyone-even Americans, even women-transport warplanes. Thus, twenty-five daring young aviators bolted for England in 1942, becoming the first American women to command military aircraft.
In a faraway land, these “spitfires” lived like women decades ahead of their time. Risking their lives in one of the deadliest jobs of the war, they ferried new, barely tested fighters and bombers to air bases and returned shot-up wrecks for repair, never knowing what might go wrong until they were high in the sky. Many ferry pilots died in crashes or made spectacular saves. It was exciting, often terrifying work. The pilots broke new ground off duty as well, shocking their hosts with thoroughly modern behavior.
With cinematic sweep, Becky Aikman follows the stories of nine of the women who served, drawing on unpublished diaries, letters, and records, along with her own interviews, to bring these forgotten heroines fully to life. Spitfires is a vivid, richly detailed account of war, ambition, and a group of remarkable women whose lives were as unconventional as their dreams.
Becky Aikman is the author of two books of narrative nonfiction: her memoir Saturday Night Widows and Off the Cliff: How the Making of Thelma & Louise Drove Hollywood to the Edge. Aikman was a journalist at Newsday, and her work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications. She lives in New York and Los Angeles.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday the 24th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91101
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rick Lupert & Hemat Malak – Online Zoom Event
Cobalt Poets Reading & Open Mic and host Rick Lupert welcomes guest Hemat Malak.
Hemat Malak is a southwestern Sydney writer whose love of poetry began in childhood. Her self-published books of spiritual writings, Make Mine Divine and Your Angels Called and Left a Message were awarded finalist positions in the 2013 International Book Awards and the 2014 National Indie Excellence Awards.
Today her writing uses poetry to give voice to life’s frustrations and the search for meaning. Her words often point to where material life meets the spiritual.
Using both formal and free verse, Hemat explores themes of identity, motherhood, and life from a woman’s perspective. She takes the reader on a journey into the heart of emotions, allowing space for personal experience. Hemat’s words evoke a silence that draws the reader inward, closer to the self.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday, the 24th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt
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.
SLAM event on every 3rd Tuesday.
$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 24th
Time: 9 pm – 11 pm
Address: 544 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036
Website: https://www.instagram.com/ or https://www.dapoetrylounge.com/
Lit Angels: Morning Writing with Francesca Lia Block at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
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 25th
Time: 8:30 am – 9:30 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events
Mystery Book Group: A Murder in Zion at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Event
Participants will enjoy a lively discussion of A Murder in Zion: A National Park Mystery by Nicole Maggi.
Grief-stricken over her mother’s death and bruised by her failure on her most recent case, Special Agent Emmeline Helliwell with the National Park Service returns to her Utah hometown to heal and regroup. She’ s determined to turn in her badge and take over her mother’ s bakery for a much quieter life…until the body of a childhood friend turns up in The Narrows of Zion National Park.
Where: Once Upon a Time
Date: Wednesday the 25th
Time: 9 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/mystery-book-group-murder-zion-nicole-maggi
Special Author Luncheon: Alki Joshi, with Lisa See, present: Six Days in Bombay and Lady Tan’s Circle of Women off-site with pages: a bookstore at The Neptunian Women’s Club – In-Person Event
Please join us for a luncheon on Wednesday, June 25th with TWO celebrated New York Times Bestselling authors of historical fiction, Alka Joshi and Lisa See. We will be celebrating the publication of Alka’s new novel, Six Days in Bombay: A Novel. She will be discussing her new novel with fan favorite and acclaimed author, Lisa See, author most recently of Lady Tan’s Circle of Women.
Ticket includes lunch and a signed hardcover copy of Six Days in Bombay: A Novel. [$75] pages will donate a portion of book sales to The Neptunian Woman’s Club.
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Henna Artist, this sweeping novel follows a young Anglo-Indian nurse who embarks on a journey from her home in Bombay, through Prague, Florence, Paris, and London, to uncover a mystery and prove her innocence after a famous painter dies in her care.
When renowned painter Mira Novak arrives at Wadia hospital in Bombay after a miscarriage, she’s expected to make a quick recovery, and Sona is excited to spend time with the worldly woman who shares her half-Indian identity, even if that’s where their similarities end. Sona is enraptured by Mira’s stories of her travels, and shocked by accounts of the many lovers she’s left scattered through Europe. Over the course of a week, Mira befriends Sona, seeing in her something bigger than the small life she’s living with her mother. Mira is released from the hospital just in time to attend a lavish engagement party where all of Bombay society. But the next day, Mira is readmitted to the hospital in worse condition than before, and when she dies under mysterious circumstances, Sona immediately falls under suspicion.
Before leaving the hospital in disgrace, Sona is given a note Mira left for her, along with her four favorite paintings. But how could she have known to leave a note if she didn’t know she was going to die? The note sends Sona on a mission to deliver three of the paintings. As Sona uncovers Mira’s history, she learns that the charming facade she’d come to know was only one part of a complicated and sometimes cruel woman. But can she discover what really happened to Mira and exonerate herself?
Along the way, Sona also comes to terms with her own complex history and the English father who deserted her and her mother in India so many years ago. In the end, she’ll discover that we are all made up of pieces, and only by seeing the world do we learn to see ourselves.
NOTE: See site for cost and further details.
Where: Neptunian Women’s Club
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 11:30 pm – 1:30 pm
Address: 920 Highland Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
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 2nd Monday of the month on KPFK Los Angeles 90.7 FM.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: KPFK 90.7 FM
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: On-air Event (live)
Website: https://www.kpfk.org/on-air/poets-cafe/
Your Author Series: Alexander Vidal & Wilds of the United States at Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Meet Alexander Vidal, author and illustrator of Wilds of the United States, and also the designer for the 2025 Summer Reading Challenge art! Children will have a chance to get a free copy of his book.
Where: Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 2411 Glendale Blvd., Silver Lake, CA 90039
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-visit-alexander-vidal
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. Get your creative juices flowing and share your work with other writers. Email katie.wright@lapl.org for more information about the next session.
RSVP:
Email katie.wright@lapl.org.
Where: Canoga Park Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
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
Good Trouble Reading Group – Gordo: Stories by Jaime Cortez via Edendale Branch Library, LAPL – Online LGBTQIA Event
Join Dr. Andrea Liss on Zoom for our next Good Trouble Reading Group. We’ll be discussing a selection from Jaime Cortez’ book Gordo: Stories.
Gordo is set in a migrant workers camp near Watsonville, California, in the 1970s. A young, probably gay boy named Gordo puts on a lucha wrestling mask and throws fists with a boy in the neighborhood, fighting his own tears as he tries to grow into the idea of manhood set for him by his father. As he comes of age, Gordo learns about sex, watches his father’s drunken fights, and discovers that even his own documented Mexican American parents are wary of illegal migrants. These intimate scenes are full of humor, family drama, and a sweet frankness about serious matters: who belongs to America, and how are they treated? With poise, heart, and humor, Cortez braids together glimpses of life in a California migrant camp that redefine what it means to be all-American.
Jaime Cortez is a graphic novelist, visual artist, writer, teacher, and performer. Cortez is also known for his role as an LGBTQ rights activist and for his HIV/AIDS prevention work. Gordo: Stories is available as a print book, e-book, and e-audiobook.
Email eden@lapl.org for the list of stories we’ll be discussing and for the Zoom link to attend.
Where: Edendale Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/good-trouble-reading-group-stories-gordo-jaime-cortez
Science Fiction Book Club: Annihilation by James VanderMeer at Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us to discuss Annihilation by James VanderMeer. Copies of this novel are available at the library.
Synopsis: Area X has been cut off from the rest of the world for years. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. Expeditions into Area X have ended in disaster or death. Join the latest expedition exploring Area X.
Where: Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: 6250 Sylmar Ave., Van Nuys, CA 91401
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/science-fiction-book-club-annihilation-james-vandermeer
Book Club: The House in the Cerulean Sea at El Monte Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join us to discuss The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Clune.
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune is a heartwarming and whimsical tale about Linus Baker, a by-the-book government worker who is sent to oversee a mysterious orphanage on a secluded island. There, he meets a group of extraordinary children and their enigmatic caretaker. As Linus learns more about them, he discovers the power of love, acceptance, and the importance of embracing differences. A story of found family and self-discovery, it’s a charming reminder that sometimes the most unexpected places lead to the greatest transformations.
A small number of copies will be available for checkout.
Where: El Monte Library, LACL
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: 3224 Tyler Ave., El Monte, CA 91731
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13799696
Book Club: The Bookish Life of Nina Hill at Montebello Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join us for a fun, enjoyable discussion on the novel, The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, by Abbi Waxman.
Nina is an introverted person who takes on an adventure outside of her comfort zone. Follow Nina’s story as she connects with others and meets new people after learning they may be her new family. There are copies available at the Circulation Desk upon request.
Where: Montebello Library, LACL
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: 1550 W. Beverly Blvd., Montebello, CA 90640
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13833131
The Canyon Readers Collective Book Club: An Immense World at Topanga Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join us for The Canyon Readers Collective discussion of An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong.
Yong explores the astonishing ways animals perceive their environments through senses beyond human experience. Copies are available to check out at the Circulation Desk.
Where: Topanga Library, LACL
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 122 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, CA 90290
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13956270
Book Club: What You Are Looking For is in the Library at Valley Plaza Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us to discuss What You Are Looking For is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama.
You may check out the book (or e-book) for free with your library card.
Where: Valley Plaza Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 6 pm – 7:15 pm
Address: 12311 Vanowen St., North Hollywood, CA 91605
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-26
Reading in Bed with Jessica: L.A. Poet Society via 101.5 FM – Live On-Air Event
Reading in Bed with Jessica hosts poets and writers in conversation and is aired weekly on 101.5 FM.
Jessica Wilson Cardenas is the founder of the Los Angeles Poet Society.
Guests: TBA
This program is offered weekly on radio in Los Angeles 101.5 FM.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: 101.5 FM
Date: Wednesday the 25th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: On-air Event (live at 101.5 FM)
Website: https://www.lapoetsociety.org/events
Romantasy Book Club: Sorcery & Small Magics at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join us to discuss Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy. Copies available at the library. For adults.
Desperate to undo the curse binding them to each other, an impulsive sorcerer and his curmudgeonly rival venture deep into a magical forest in search of a counterspell—only to discover that magic might not be the only thing pulling them together.
Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 29901 Ladyface Ct., Agoura Hills, CA 91301
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13614011
Mystery & Thriller Book Club: Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us to discuss Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto.
RSVP:
Please email studio@lapl.org for details.
Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark Street, Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-thriller-book-club-0
Stephanie Leder, with Maria Amparo, & Love, Coffee, and Revolution at Deisel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Stephanie Leder, in conversation with Maria Amparo, 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. So 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 actually 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?
Will Dee find the courage to chart her own course? The wisdom to understand her own heart? And has she finally found a cause worth fighting for?
Stefanie Leder is a TV showrunner and writer whose credits include the MTV teen dramedy Faking It; the TBS comedy Men at Work; Netflix’s Boo, Bitch; and the long-running ABC Family comedy Melissa & Joey. She’s a guest lecturer on television writing at the University of California Palm Desert Low-Residency MFA program. Bilingual in English and Spanish, she spent a year abroad in Costa Rica and has worked for a nonprofit on Fair Trade Coffee and anti-sweatshop campaigns. Her debut short story, “Not a Dinner Party Person,” won a prestigious spot in The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2025 anthology. Love, Coffee, and Revolution is her first novel.
María Amparo Escandón is a New York Times best-selling bilingual author (English/Spanish.) Her novel, L.A. Weather, is a New York Times best-seller, a Reese’s Book Club pick and the winner of the Fiction Award at the International Latino Book Awards, 2022. Her first novel, Esperanza’s Box of Saints, (Santitos in Spanish,) has been the number one best seller in the Los Angeles Times Best Sellers List, it has 21 foreign editions and is read in over 86 countries. Her second novel is González & Daughter Trucking Co. (Transportes González e Hija, S.A. in Spanish.)
NOTE: RSVP at website.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th Street, Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-06-25/stefanie-leder-maria-amparo-escandon-author-signing
Phil Melanson & Florenzer at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Phil Melanson will discuss and sign Florenzer.
Leonardo da Vinci, twelve years old and a bastard, leaves the Tuscan countryside to join his father in Florence with dreams of becoming a painter. Francesco Salviati, also a bastard and scorned for his too-dark skin, dedicates himself to the Catholic Church with grand hopes of salvation. Towering above them both is Lorenzo de’ Medici, barely a man, yet soon to be the patriarch of the world’s wealthiest and most influential bank. Each of these young men harbors profound ambition, anxious to prove their potential to their superiors—and to themselves. Each is, in his own way, a son of Florence. Each will, when their paths cross, shed blood on Florence’s streets.
Fifteenth-century Florence flourishes as a haven of breathtaking artistic, cultural, and technological innovation, but discord churns below the surface: the Medici’s bank exacerbates the city’s staggering wealth inequality, and rumors swirl of a rift between Lorenzo and the new pope. Meanwhile, the city has become Europe’s preeminent destination for gay men—or “florenzers,” as they come to be crudely called. For Leonardo, an astonishingly gifted painter’s apprentice, being a florenzer might feel like personal liberation—but risk lingers around every corner.
Brash and breathtaking, this lush historical drama unfolds the machinations of a city on the brink of a new age as it contends with the tensions between public and private lives, the entanglement of erotic and creative impulse, the sacrifices of the determinedly pious, and the risks of fantastic power. With his “unforgettable characters and an ever-twisting plot, all told with style, skill, and wry black humor” (Tim Leach), Phil Melanson emerges as an enthralling new voice in contemporary fiction.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 25th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/phil-melanson
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 25th
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
Website: https://www.palmsupacademy.com
At Skylight: Yrsa Daley-Ward, with bridgette bianca, & The Catch: A Novel at Skylight – In-Person Event
Yrsa Daley-Ward, in conversation with bridgette bianca, will present and discuss The Catch: A Novel.
Twin sisters Clara and Dempsey have always struggled to relate, their familial bond severed after their mother vanished into the Thames. As infants they were adopted into different families, Clara sent to live with a successful, upper-class couple, and Dempsey with a sullen, unaffectionate city councilor. In adulthood, they are content to be all but estranged, until Clara sees a woman who looks exactly like their mother on the streets of London. The catch: this version of Serene, aged not a day, has enjoyed a childless life—the very life, it seems, she might have had if the girls had never been born.
As with most things, Clara and Dempsey cannot see eye to eye on the confounding appearance of this woman. Clara, a celebrity author with a penchant for excessive drinking and one-night stands, is all too willing to welcome the confident and temperamental Serene into her home. But cloistered Dempsey, who makes a modest living doing menial data entry work from the confines of her apartment, is dubious of the whole situation, believing this all to be the insidious ruse of a con woman. Clashing over this stranger who burrows deeper and deeper into their lives, the sisters hurtle toward an altercation that threatens their very existence, forcing them to finally confront their pasts—together.
In her riveting first foray into fiction, Yrsa Daley-Ward conjures a kaleidoscopic multiverse of daughterhood and mother-want, exploring the sacrifices that women must make for self-actualization. The result is a marvel of a debut novel that boldly asks, “How can it ever, ever be a crime to choose yourself?”
Yrsa Daley-Ward is a poet, writer, and actress. She is the author of The How, bone, and The Terrible, for which she won the PEN Ackerley Prize. She lives in Los Angeles.
bridgette bianca is a poet and professor from South Central Los Angeles. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English from Howard University and her Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Otis College of Art & Design. Her first book of poetry, be/trouble, was released by Writ Large Projects in 2020 and is now in its second edition. be/trouble was listed as one of Bookriot’s 9 Poetry Books That Capture The Black Experience, L.A. Taco Book Guide’s 32 L.A.-Centered Books, and Big Other Magazine’s Most Anticipated Small Press Books of 2020. When she is not reading her work, she hosts workshops and other events around the city. Recently, she joined forces with poet, artist, and activist GusTavo Guerra Vasquez to form the literary curating team South Central Spits Fire. Find her online at bridgettebianca.com.
Where: Skylight
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-yrsa-daley-ward-presents-catch-w-bridgette-bianca
How to Perform Poetry Workshop at Underdog Bookstore – In-Person Event
Poetry isn’t just meant to be read—it’s meant to be felt. In this class, you’ll learn to bring your words to life with presence, power, and purpose. Whether you’re stepping onto a stage for the first time or looking to refine your delivery, this class guides you through the essentials of voice, movement, and emotional connection. Through practical exercises, peer feedback, and performance techniques, you’ll gain the confidence to turn your poems into unforgettable experiences.
Workshop led by K Andrew Turner:
K. Andrew Turner writes queer, literary, and speculative fiction, poetry, and nonfiction in stolen weekday moments. In 2013, he founded East Jasmine Review—an electronic literary journal, with a focus on publishing diverse writers. He was a semifinalist for the 2016 Luminaire Award in poetry. His full-length poetry collection Heart, Mind, Blood, Skin is now available from Finishing Line Press. He also has a chapbook, “Gymlationship” from Arroyo Seco Press His work has also appeared in Chiron Review, LUMMOX, Carnival Literary, Sadie Girl Press, MUSE, Redshift, and other publications and anthologies. Find more at http://www.kandrewturner.com or follow him on twitter @kandrewturner.
Where: Underdog Bookstore
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 312 South Myrtle Ave., Monrovia, CA 91016
Website: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/how-to-perform-poetry-workshop
Vroman’s Fiction Reading Group: Held at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss the June selection, Held: A Novel, by Anne Michaels.
1917. On a battlefield near the River Escaut, John lies in the aftermath of a blast, unable to move or feel his legs. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he is lost to memory as the snow falls—a chance encounter in a pub by a railway, a hot bath with his lover on a winter night.
1920. John has returned from war to North Yorkshire, near a different river. He is alive but still not whole. Reunited with Helena, an artist, he reopens his photography business and tries to keep on living. But the past erupts insistently into the present, as ghosts begin to surface in his pictures: ghosts with messages he cannot understand.
So begins a narrative that spans four generations of connections and consequences that ignite and reignite as the century unfolds. In radiant moments of desire, comprehension, longing, and transcendence, the sparks fly upward, working their transformations decades later.
Held is affecting and intensely beautiful, full of mystery, wisdom, and compassion, a novel by a writer at the height of her powers.
Anne Michaels’s books have been translated into more than forty-five languages and have won dozens of international awards, including the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Guardian Fiction Prize, and the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction. She has been short-listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize, twice short-listed for the Giller Prize, and twice long-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her novel Fugitive Pieces was adapted into a feature film. From 2015 to 2019, she was Toronto’s poet laureate. She lives in Canada.
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Where: Vroman’s, 2nd Foor event space
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-06-25/vromans-fiction-reading-group
Anansi Writers Workshop at The World Stage – In-Person Event
The Anansi Writers Workshop was founded in 1990 by Kamau Daáood, Akilah Oliver, Nafis Nabawi and Anthony Lyons. In 1993, Michael Datcher initiated the development of a three-part format for the workshop. Our tradition of a community workshop began in the late 1960s at the Watts Writers’ Workshop, where World Stage co-founder Kamau Daáood started his writing career. Hosted by Jessica Gallion aka “Yellawoman.”
- 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm — Formal workshop;
- 8:30 pm – 9:00 pm — Besskepp & JB;
- 9:05 pm – 10:00 pm — Open mic.
Cory Besskepp Cofer is a poet with a hop hop mentality. He grew up on Langston Hughes and Public Enemy. Blending originality and rich heritage into his writings and performances, he gives a classic face to his urban-inspired works. A Special Education Teacher, Besskepp’s other accomplishments include performing and conducting poetry workshops at colleges and universities nationally, being featured on HBO’s Def Poetry and having his Hip Hop Theater play, Homeless Beat-boxer, featured at the REDCAT at Disney Hall. He’s the author of the poetry collection Dreaming Under Poka-Dot Stars (World Stage Press, 2023).
JB is a DJ and co-founder of the open mic A Mic & Dim Lights.
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 (use left rear entrance)
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 4321 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.instagram.com
Story Salon: Let’s Swap at Art Parlor in Valley Village – In-Person Event
Join us for a night of storytelling, item swapping!
“Let’s Swap!” is about giving away something “sentimental” in your possession – telling a 2 minutes story about how it came into your life and why you want to let it go.
Then at the end of the show you can swap it out for another person’s treasure.
You give something you get something.
Storytellers coming soon!
Where: Art Parlor
Date: Wednesday the 25th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm (Doors at 7 pm)
Address: 5302 Laurel Canyon Blvd., Valley Village, CA 91607
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/story-salon-lets-swap-tickets-1382969100809
Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop with Tom Laichas via Beyond Baroque – Online Event
The West Coast’s longest-running free poetry workshop is offered by Beyond Baroque on Zoom and welcomes new and seasoned poets to share their work and provide feedback. Please be prepared to share one poem. This workshop will be hosted via the Zoom video-conferencing platform. Please be prepared to share one poem.
Please spend some time before the workshop learning how to share documents via Zoom. It will keep the session moving if you’re able to make your poem viewable quickly and easily. An instructive video is available 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 25th
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 25th
Time: 8 pm – 9:45 pm (Doors at 7:30)
Address: 324 N. McDonnell Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90022
Website: https://www.instagram.com/eastlossoul/ or https://www.bgcela.org/
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg and Guests Sarah Thursday and Kimberly Esslinger at The Ugly Mug – In-Person Event
Host Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry welcome featured guests: Sarah Thursday and Kimbely Esslinger.
Sarah Thursday is a poet, arts advocate, and music lover. She has been published in many fine journals and anthologies, interviewed by Poetry LA, and received a 2017 Best of the Net nomination. She has two full-length collections, All the Tiny Anchors and Conversations with Gravel. More info at SarahThursday.com
Kimberly Esslinger is a poet and digital media producer. Her work explores identity, queer wonder, and the ruptures and absurdities of daily suburban living in Southern California. She recently started SNAP! Press to publish Morning Writes, a collaborative project of four lesbian poets over 60. Her next project is SNAP! Poetry Review, a journal set to launch later this year. Her work has appeared in Smartish Pace, Calyx, Spillway, Los Angeles Review, Nerve Cowboy, and Chiron Review.
When she’s not writing, Kimberly could be brewing kombucha, organizing a Dyke March, producing a podcast with her wife on lesbian bars, or tending her unruly community garden plot. She believes growing your own food—like hope, like poetry—is a radical act of resistance. Her personal mottos are “Seek Wonder!” and “It is never too late to be who you might have been.” — George Eliot.
$4 cover fee, cash only See less.
$4 cover fee
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Wednesday, the 25th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events
“Saved by a Story” Seniors Writing Group at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Come enjoy creativity and community in a nonjudgmental environment. Discover the bounty of stories that lies within!
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 1 pm – 2 pm
Address: 1246 Glendon Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/saved-story-senior-writing-workshop-1
Book Discussion: The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia at Sunland – Tujunga Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us for this community-led book discussion of The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia by Juliet Grames.
Set in the wild heart of Calabria, a land of sheer cliff faces, ancient tradition, dazzling sunlight—and one of the world’s most ruthless criminal syndicates—The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia is a suspenseful puzzle mystery, a captivating romance, and an affecting portrait of a young woman in search of a meaningful life.
Where: Sunland – Tujunga Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 1 pm – 2 pm
Address: 7771 Foothill Blvd., Tujunga, CA 91042
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-discussion-10
Marina Del Rey Book Club: The Invention of Wings at Lloyd Taber Marina Del Rey Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd.
This historical fiction novel spans over 35 years in the early 19th century American South. Inspired by the real-life story of Sarah Grimké, an early abolitionist and women’s rights advocate, the novel follows the intertwined lives of two women: Sarah Grimké and Hetty “Handful” Grimké, an enslaved girl given to Sarah as an eleventh birthday gift. This is the afternoon session.
Where: Lloyd Taber Marina Del Rey Library, LACL
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: 4533 Admiralty Way, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13723284
We Love L.A. Book Club: Dead in Long Beach, California at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
We Love L.A. Book Club examines books and authors that weave the diversity and rich history of our city into their works.
The selection for June is Dead in Long Beach, California by Venita Blackburn. The novel centers on Coral, a black lesbian sci-fi writer, who discovers the body of her brother Jay in his apartment. Jay has died by suicide. In denial, she impersonates him in the virtual world. Coral’s lies begin to close in on her as, beset by grief and resurfacing memories, her grip on reality falters.
The library will have copies to check out, or check our e-media page for electronic access on Libby and hoopla.
Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 5027 Caspar Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90041
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/we-love-la-book-club-22
Book Club for Adults: The Women at Chet Holifield Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss The Women by Kristin Hannah.
Whether you like historical fiction, sci-fi, romance, or memoirs, this book club reads it all. This month, join us for a discussion of The Women by Kristin Hannah. For Adults.
Pick up a copy of the book at the information desk today!
Where: Chet Holifield Library, LACL
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 1060 S. Greenwood Ave., Montebello, CA 90640
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13780749
Between the Lines Book Club for Adults: James at Castaic Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss James by Percival Everett.
This story is a harrowing and ferociously funny retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view. For adults.
Copies are available at the Customer Service desk and newcomers are always welcome!
Where: Castaic Library, LACL
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 27971 Sloan Canyon Rd., Castaic, CA
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13614161
Cover to Cover Book Club: The Last Rose in Shanghai at Mid-Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Participants will discuss the monthly book selection.
June 26: The Last Rose in Shanghai by Weina Dai Randel
Copies of each month’s selection should be available for check-out at the Reference Desk. New members are always welcome.
Where: Mid-Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 16244 Nordhoff St., North Hills, CA 91343
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/cover-cover-book-club-2
Poetry Workshop With Martin Jago at Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Poetry Workshop invites new and seasoned poets to share new work and provide feedback, facilitated by British-American poet Martin Jago. This weekly two-hour workshop is suitable for adults, and the group is limited to a maximum of twelve participants.
Attendees should bring their own poetry to share, a notebook, and a pen.
Where: Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 2411 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90039
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-workshop-martin-jago
Nature Writers Panel at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Village Well welcomes a panel of nature writers. Join us!
It’s important now, more than ever, to appreciate and acknowledge the natural world around us, and authors Sharman Apt Russell, Jeff Share, and Lila Higgins have made a career doing just that. Together, the three will read from their distinguished works, engage in a moderated conversation, and take questions from the audience. By the end of the event, you might just feel closer to the wild world around us, even in Los Angeles.
Reserve your seat on EVENTBRITE!
About the participants:
Author Sharman Apt Russell has published a dozen books translated into nine languages. Her Diary of a Citizen Scientist won the prestigious John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Writing. Her recent nonfiction What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs (Columbia University Press, 2024) is part lyrical memoir and part introduction to common mammal tracks in North America. By the end of this book, readers should be able to look down at a print on the ground and say, with some satisfaction, “Raccoon” or “Skunk,” “Bobcat” or “Mountain lion,” “Coyote” or “Domestic dog.” Sharman lives in the magical realism of the American Southwest. For the last twenty-five years, she has taught in the MFA program at Antioch University in Los Angeles. She is also a professor emeritus at Western New Mexico University in Silver City, NM. For more information, go to http://www.sharmanaptrussell.com.
Lila Higgins joined the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles in 2008. As the Senior Manager in Community Science, they are a museum educator with almost two decades of experience in museum education and community science programming. Their fascination with nature started early; they grew up on a farm in the U.K. where they spent their time chasing butterflies, playing in hollow trees, and pretending to be a badger. Lila was a lead educator on the Natural History Museum’s newest nature-themed exhibits—the Nature Lab and Nature Gardens. They also authored the book Wild LA and co-founded a global community science event called the City Nature Challenge. They hold a bachelor’s degree in entomology from UC Riverside and a master’s degree in environmental education from California State University, San Bernardino.
Jeff Share, PhD, is a senior lecturer in the School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Jeff’s research and practice focuses on preparing educators to teach critical media literacy and environmental justice. He worked as an award-winning photojournalist for a decade and then taught bilingual elementary school in LAUSD for seven years. The author of many books, in 2024, Jeff edited and published For the Love of Nature: Ecowriting the World, a series of essays that address the power and magic of writing about the natural world. These authors offer ideas and examples of ecowriting through various media and genres, including videos, journals, letters, comic strips, poetry, and more. For more information, go to jshare.wixsite.com/jeffshare.
About the featured titles:
Part lyrical memoir and part advocacy for wildlife conservation, What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs is an introduction to identifying the common tracks of mammals in North America. By the end of the book, readers should be able to look down at a print in the dirt and think, “Gray fox” or “Deer mouse” or “Raccoon.” Sharman Apt Russell lives in the magical realism of rural New Mexico and teaches at the low-residency MFA program at Antioch University in Los Angeles The author of a dozen books, translated into nine languages, she is the winner of the 2016 John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Writing. Photographer and illustrator Kim A. Cabrera is a master tracker and well-known wildlife tracking educator.
Los Angeles may have a reputation as a concrete jungle, but it’s full of amazing wildlife. You just need to know where to find it! Equal parts natural history, field guide, and trip planner, Wild LA has something for everyone. It looks at the factors that shape local nature—including fire, floods, and climate—and profiles over 100 local species, from easy-to-spot squirrels and praying mantids to more elusive green sea turtles, bighorn sheep, and mountain lions. Also included are descriptions of day trips that help you explore natural wonders on hiking trails, in public parks, and in your own backyard.
For the Love of Nature: Eco-writing the World brings together a series of essays that address the power and magic of writing about the natural world. The array of authors and locations, from Melbourne to Los Angeles to Rome, share their expertise in literacy and their passion for nature. They offer ideas and examples of ecowriting through various media and genres including videos, journals, letters, comic strips, poetry, and more. Their reflections on writing demonstrate a love of nature and concern for education that promotes social and environmental justice for students of all ages. The essays offer numerous examples for interacting with the environment. For the Love of Nature includes many entry points for ecowriting, from theoretical explanations to practical, step-by-step applications. The essays, student examples, lesson plans, and lists of resources provide everything a teacher needs to engage their students in reflecting on, participating with, and writing about the natural world.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Thursday the 26th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/2943420250626
Bel Canto Book Club hosted by Union @ Compound, Long Beach – In-Person Event
Join us for the Bel Canto Book Club hosted by Union @ Compund (1395 Coronado Avenue, Long Beach CA 90804). We meet every third Thursday of the month at 6:30pm to discuss a book of contemporary fiction or non-fiction handpicked by bookstore owner Jhoanna Belfer of Bel Canto Books.
Where: Union @ Compound
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1395 Coronado Ave., Long Beach, CA 90804
Website: https://belcantobooks.net/events
Lisa Jewell, with Amy Tintera and Lucinda Berry, & Don’t Let Him In at Deisel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Lisa Jewell, in conversation with Amy Tintera and Lucinda Berry, will discuss Don’t Let Him In.
Three women are connected by one man in this kaleidoscopic thriller.
“Who are you? Who are you really?”
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…
“Because there are things that don’t make sense, and I’ve been so patient, so very patient…”
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 share the feeling that something isn’t right.
“You know that’s mad, don’t you? I’m your husband. We know everything there is to know about each other.”
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.
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.
Amy Tintera started writing novels as a kid during her middle school science classes, which probably explains why she has always been very bad at science. She is the author of several teen novels, and her first book for adults, Listen For the Lie, was an instant New York Times Bestseller and a Good Morning America Book Club pick. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Texas A&M and a master’s degree in media arts/screenwriting from Emerson College. She worked as a talent agency assistant in Hollywood before becoming an author. Raised in Austin, Texas, she frequently sets her novels in the Lone Star state, but she now lives in Los Angeles, where there’s far less humidity, but not nearly enough Tex-Mex.
Lucinda Berry is a former psychologist and leading researcher in childhood trauma. She’s written multiple bestsellers reaching millions of readers worldwide. Some of her bestselling works include The Perfect Child, Saving Noah, When She Returned, The Best of Friends, and Keep Your Friends Close. Her books have been optioned for film and translated into several languages.
NOTE: RSVP at website.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th Street, Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/lisa-jewell-amy-tintera-author-signing
Barry Avrich, with Eric McCormack, & The Devil Wears Rothko at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Barry Avrich, in conversation with Eric McCormack, will discuss and sign The Devil Waers Rothko.
The perfect con: a prestigious gallery, a mysterious foreign collector, a Barry Avrich, unravels the extraordinary scandal that brought down one of America’s oldest and most important art galleries.
It began when Glafira Rosales, a shadowy art dealer, walked into the Upper East Side Knoedler Gallery with what appeared to be a valuable Mark Rothko painting. Gallery director Ann Freedman staked her reputation on the multiplying works from Rothko, Pollock, Motherwell and others that Rosales offered, persuading wealthy collectors to pay millions. When the fraud unraveled, Freedman claimed to be just another victim- fooled by the very deception she had championed. brilliant forger, and nearly $80 million in fake art.
This book asks: has anything changed or could this easily happen again?
Barry Avrich is a veteran documentary filmmaker and producer who has directed and produced over seventy films including Made You Look, Born Hungry, Prosecuting Evil, Blurred Lines, and David Foster: Off The Record. Avrich has authored five books including Moguls. Monsters and Madmen (2017), and built the world’s first movie theater in a hospital.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday the 26th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Book Event: Ashley Poston, with Julie Soto, & Sounds Like Love at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Ashley Poston, in conversation with Julie Soto, will discuss her romance novel Sounds Like Love.
A book signing will follow. This is a ticketed event.
NOTE: See site for RSVP & details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 3806 Main St., Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://www.therippedbodice.com/events-and-tickets
At Skylight: Daniel Book & The Einstein of Sex at Skylight – In-Person Event
Daniel Brook will present and discuss The Einstein of Sex.
Where: Skylight
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-daniel-brook-presents-einstein-sex
Wrong Galaxy: Speculative Fiction Reading with Grace Freud at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Join Stories Books & Café for Wrong Galaxy: Speculative Fiction Reading with Grace Freud.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Tia Chucha’s Book Club: The House on Mango Street at Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore – In-Person Event
Participants willdiscuss The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.
Join our book club by reading the book and meeting us at Tia Chucha’s Thursday, June 26 at 7:30pm. No registration required.
Where: Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 126777 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar, CA 91342
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DKPtqeOpEtG/?hl=en&img_index=1
Jayson Greene, with Alua Arthur, & Unworld at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Jayson Greene, in conversation with Alua Arthur, will discuss his novel Unworld: A Novel.
From the author of Once More We Saw Stars comes a gripping novel about four intertwined lives that collide in the wake of a mysterious tragedy. Set in a near-future world where the boundaries between human and AI blur, the story challenges our understanding of consciousness and humanity.
Anna is shattered by the violent death of her son, Alex, and tormented by the question of whether it was an accident or a suicide. Samantha is Alex’s best friend, and the only eyewitness to his death. She keeps returning to the cliff where she watched him either jump or fall, trying to sift through the shards. Aviva is an “upload,” a digital entity composed of the sense memories of a human tether. But she’s “emancipated,” having left her human behind. Set free from her source and harboring a troubling secret, she finds temporary solace in the body of Cathy, a self-destructive ex-addict turned AI professor and upload-rights activist.
With Unworld, Jayson Greene envisions a grim but eerily familiar near-future where all lines have blurred—between visceral and digital, human and machine, real and unreal. As Anna, Cathy, Sam, and Aviva’s stories hurtle toward each other, the stakes of UnWorld reveal themselves with electrifying intensity: What happens to the soul when it is splintered by grief? Where does love reside except in memory? What does it mean to be conscious, to be human, to be alive?
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Skulls & Stairs: Shelby Pinkham, Wes Weisbaum CD Eskilson at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person Event
Join us for a mind-bending reading at the staircase of the original Skulls & Stairs reading series is back for the Summer and Fall at Beyond Baroque! Join us in the infamous staircase of the Original Venice City Hall building for a showcase of experimental, obscure, and punk poets. To kick off the season, this June features CD Eskilson reading from their new book Scream Queen, a horror-inspired debut poetry collection examining queerness, mental illness, and transgender identity through the lens of thrillers and B movies; Bakersfield-based Chicanx poet Shelby Pinkham, whose poems have appeared in Huizache, and The Offing; and Wes Weisbaum, 2023 Reef Resident Artist at California Institute of the Arts.
Before and after the readings, short films by Wes Weisbaum will be screening in The Wanda Coleman Theater!
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Thursday, the 26th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice Beach Los Angeles, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/skulls-stairs-shelby-pinkham-wes-weisbaum-cd-eskilson-tickets-1400399365199?aff=oddtdtcreator
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 27th
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 27th
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/pajama-story-time-20
Book Club: The Berry Pickers at La Mirada Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss The Berry Pickers: A Novel by Amanda Peters.
July 1962. A family arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe. Joe will remain distraught by her disappearance for years to come. For adults.
Where: La Mirada Library, LACL
Date: Friday the 27th
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Address: 13800 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada, CA 90638
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13742005
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 27th
Time: 11 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events
Writing Gets Lonely: Open Writing Studio at Heavy Manners Library – In-Person Event
Offered every Friday in June!
No frills. No prompts. Just write.
Drop in and stay awhile.
Where: Heavy Manners Library
Date: Friday the 27th
Time: 1 pm – 3 pm
Address: 1200 N. Alvarado St. Unit D, Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://heavymannerslibrary.com/events
Horror Book Club: Our Wives Under the Sea at Compton Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield.
Do you find yourself attracted to the strange and unusual? Do you enjoy what others may find frightening? If so, join the Horror Book Club where each month we’ll provide you with diverse horror authors and titles to discuss with people who enjoy the same genre as you.
Leah is changed. A marine biologist, she left for a routine expedition months earlier, only this time her submarine sank to the sea floor. When she finally surfaces and returns home, her wife Miri knows that something is wrong.
Attendance is limited, and advance registration is required. This will be used to save your spot in the program. We cannot guarantee availability for any unregistered adult. To sign up, see library staff, or register online at Visit.LACountyLibrary.org/Events and filter by location or event date.
Where: Compton Library, LACL
Date: Friday the 27th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 13800 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada, CA 90638
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13742005
Black Lit Book Club: Company: Stories at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join participants to discuss Company: Stories by Shannon Sanders.
This is a richly detailed, brilliantly woven debut collection about the lives and lore of one Black family, named one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2023
Shannon Sanders’s sparkling debut brings us into the company of the Collins family and their acquaintances as they meet, bicker, compete, celebrate, worry, keep, and reveal secrets, build lives and careers, and endure. Moving from Atlantic City to New York to DC, from the 1960s to the 2000s, from law students to drag performers to violinists to matriarchs, Company tells a multifaceted, multigenerational saga in thirteen stories.
Each piece includes a moment when a guest arrives at someone’s home. In “The Good, Good Men,” two brothers reunite to oust a “deadbeat” boyfriend from their mother’s house. In “The Everest Society,” the brothers’ sister anxiously prepares for a home visit from a social worker before adopting a child. In “Birds of Paradise,” their aunt, newly promoted to university provost, navigates a minefield of microaggressions at her own welcome party. And in the haunting title story, the provost’s sister finds her solitary life disrupted when her late sister’s daughter comes calling.
These are stories about intimacy, societal and familial obligations, and the ways inheritances shape our fates. Buoyant, somber, sharp, and affectionate, this collection announces a remarkable new voice in fiction.
Shannon Sanders lives and works near Washington, DC. Her fiction has appeared in One Story, Electric Literature, Joyland, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere, and was a 2020 winner of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Friday the 27th
Time: 6 pm
Where: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/black-lit-book-club-company-stories
Open Mic Night Every Friday Night at The Den Café, Santa Ana – In-Person Event
See you for a night of local talent, food, coffee and cocktails at The Den Cafe. A stage that’s been a home for OC’s artist since 1999.
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 27th
Time: 6 pm (Doors at 5:30 pm)
Address: 125 N. Broadway, Santa Ana, CA 9270
Website: https://www.instagram.com
Gary Baum, with August Brown, & In Pursuit of Beauty at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Gary Baum, in conversation with August Brown, will discuss In Pursuit of Beauty.
From the mind of acclaimed reporter Gary Baum comes In Pursuit of Beauty, a striking debut novel that examines the nature of truth and allure in our modern world.
What would you endure to fulfill your dreams?
What would you do to have the perfect body?
For Dr. Roya Delshad, the answers are anything and everything. A sought-after Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, Roya is also the highest example of her craft. She’s had every inch of her own body sculpted, one procedure at a time. All to escape a painful and lonely past.
But when Roya gives the gift of beauty to those who can’t afford the cost, the media labels her “The Robin Hood of Roxbury Drive,” and she soon finds herself pleading her case from inside a prison cell.
Hoping to resurrect her reputation and obscure a trail of unhappy clients, Roya tells her story with the help of the blithely handsome Wes Easton, a journalist and failed screenwriter who agrees to ghostwrite her memoir. In a twistingly tense pas de deux, Wes struggles to tell fact from fiction, and Roya seeks to explode his notions about aspiration and desire, sending their collaboration off the rails.
A bold, stylish, and provocative thriller about surfaces and their hidden depths, In Pursuit of Beauty explores what it means to become exactly who you once yearned to be.
Gary Baum is an award-winning investigative journalist at The Hollywood Reporter. He has twice been named Journalist of the Year by the Los Angeles Press Club. His work was the basis for Peacock’s Emmy-nominated series Angelyne, which featured a fictionalized Baum portrayed by Alex Karpovsky. In Pursuit of Beauty is his first novel.
August Brown covers music and culture for the Los Angeles Times, where he has won top prizes from the Los Angeles Press Club and National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards for his investigative and feature work.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday the 27th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event
Romance Book Club: The Charm Offensive at Chevalier’s – In-Person Event
Grab your gals and grab your wine and join Chevalier’s only after-hours book club as we discuss The Charm Offensive!
Fans of Red White and Royal Blue and One To Watch will love this charming and witty novel that follows the Dev Deshpande, a fairy-tale obsessed reality tv producer whose dreams of making his show a star are thrown into chaos when disgraced tech wunderkind Charlie Winshaw is cast as the shows lead.
Far from a romantic lead and not interested in the shows format, Dev will fight to make his show a hit as he grows closer to his lackluster lead. But when sparks begin to fly on-stage and off, will Dev sacrifice his dream to be with his very own prince charming?
Where: Chevalier’s
Date: Friday the 27th
Time: 7 pm
Where: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2025-06-27/romance-book-club
At Skylight: Kelly Laudenberg and Makiko Wholey, with J.C. Gabel, & Hollywood Vampires at Skylight – In-Person Event
Kelly Laudenberg and Makiko Wholey, in conversation with J.C. Gabel, will discuss Hollywood Vampires.
Celebrity romances have always captured the public’s imagination, playing out like soap operas seized upon by fans and tabloids alike. By the same token, high-profile trials can take over the mainstream media cycle, with both news pundits and the public picking over every detail to predict outcomes and cast their own judgements. Enter the union, dissolution, and hostile legal battle between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard—where these dual obsessions collided in a chaotic moment of true cultural fixation.
Hollywood Vampires offers an inside account of one of the most controversial and consequential celebrity scandals of the internet era. Fueled by viral clips, reaction videos, and endless online debates, the trial became more than a legal battle. It became a public spectacle, dividing audiences worldwide. Kelly Loudenberg and Makiko Wholey were documentarians and journalists on the ground for the Depp vs Heard trial. Having closely followed both Johnny, Amber, and their camps, they spent years leading up to and following the trial, interviewing the couple’s closest allies as well as their managers, lawyers, agents, business associates, publicists, assistants, and personal staff. Culled from their reporting in Fairfax, Virginia, as well as over 50 hours of exclusive video footage, Hollywood Vampires is a lucid, inside-the-room account that reveals a story the world thinks it knows in an entirely new light.
Kelly Loudenberg is a documentarian, journalist, and visual artist. Makiko Wholey is a producer and writer based in Los Angeles. Loudenberg and Wholey’s work questions why we take celebrity culture so seriously in the first place—and who wins and who loses when Hollywood becomes the vehicle for our own personal and political causes. They will be available for select book interviews this summer, and confidential excerpts/assets are available upon request. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions.
Jason Christopher “J.C.” Gabel began his publishing career at 19, founding Stop Smiling, a magazine inspired by the golden age of print. Over 15 years, the publication grew into a celebrated glossy featuring timeless themes and exclusive interviews. Since 2010, Gabel has edited and published books for renowned firms like Chronicle and Taschen while contributing to outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The Paris Review, and The New York Times. He also created The Pitchfork Review, Pitchfork’s acclaimed print quarterly.
Where: Skylight
Date: Friday the 27th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Book Talk: All This Safety Is Killing Us with Editors & Contributors at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Join Stories Books & Café for a book talk with Editors and contributors of All This Safety Is Killing Us: Health Justice Beyond Prisons, Police, and Borders.
Edited by Ronica Mukerjee and Carlos Martinez. Forward by Rachel Herezing.
This book is a multi-discipline, multimedia guide to abolition through the lens of healthcare and medicine – featuring writings and artwork from 10+ incarcerated and post-detention activists.
Exposing how marginalized communities are vilified by “carceral safety” systems, educators and health justice advocates Carlos Martinez and Ronica Mukerjee call for a radical break with reformist strategies in favor of ones grounded in grassroots organizing and abolition
Ronica Mukerjee DNP, MsA, is a family and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and acupuncturist. Mukerjee is an assistant professor at Columbia University and has a private practice providing hormonal and psychiatric care for trans and gender-diverse patients. Mukerjee’s focuses include border, police, and prison abolition as well as racial, economic, and healthcare justice for people with substance use disorders and LGBTQIA+ people living with HIV in refugee and migrant communities.
Carlos Martinez, MPH, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies and faculty of the Global and Community Health program at UC, Santa Cruz. His research and advocacy are aimed at promoting health and social justice among migrants, asylum seekers, deportees, substance users, and other marginalized groups.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Friday, the 27th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Book Launch: Emily Skrutskie, with Tara Sim, & A Legionnaire’s Guide to Love and Peace at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Emily Skrutskie, in conversation with Tara Sim, will discuss A Legionnaire’s Guide to Love and Peace.
Emily Skrutskie is six feet tall. She lives and works in Los Angeles. Skrutskie is the author of The Salvation Gambit, Vows of Empire, Oaths of Legacy, Bonds of Brass, Hullmetal Girls, The Abyss Surrounds Us, and The Edge of the Abyss.
Tara Sim is the critically acclaimed YA and Adult fantasy author of the We Shall Be Monsters duology, The Dark Gods Saga, the Scavenge the Stars duology, and the Timekeeper trilogy who can typically be found wandering the wilds of the Bay Area, California. When she’s not chasing cats or lurking in bookstores, she writes books about magic, murder, and mayhem.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Friday the 27th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events
Double Book Launch: Paul Lieber & Gail Wronsky at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person Event
Join us for an evening of poetry with Paul Lieber and Gail Wronsky in celebration of new book-length collections.
Paul Lieber’s book Slow Return shines through the poet’s “ability to go beyond the ekphrastic,” in the words of poet, Jim Natal, “to parse his past, glean details, and ultimately translate into poetry his interactivity with a book he encountered—a photographic memoir of 1960s Manhattan by a former Village Voice photographer. This is, in essence, a memoir sparked by memoir.”
Gail Wronsky’s new collection, Mockingbird’s Proverbs (White Pine Press). The book moves through meditations on inherited wisdom, mortality, and survival in a world in crisis. From sharp, prophetic verses inspired by Blake’s Proverbs of Hell to intimate reflections on motherhood, loss, and resistance, Wronsky’s work is both lyrical and urgent. She’ll be joined by poet Paul Liebler for a night of poetry in The Wanda Coleman Theater.
Gail Wronsky’s previous books include Born in a Barn on Venus (Walton Well Press), a collection of ekphrastic poems with drawings by renowned artist Gronk Nicandro. A chapbook of poems called Some Disenfranchised Evening, winner of the Swan Scythe Chapbook Prize, was published in 2024. Other books include The Stranger You Are, also with artwork by artist Gronk (Tía Chucha Press), Dying for Beauty (Copper Canyon) and Under the Capsized Boat We Fly: New & Selected Poems (White Pine Press). The recipient of an Artists Fellowship from the California Arts Council, and a finalist for the Western States Arts Federation Poetry Prize, Gail and her partner Chuck Rosenthal are the founders of What Books Press and Giant Claw, two publishing houses dedicated to discovering and publishing new literary prose and poetry.
Paul Lieber’s first collection, Chemical Tendencies, (Tebot Bach) was a finalist in the MSR poetry contest. He also received an honorable mention in the Allen Ginsberg Contest. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Paul produces and hosts “Why Poetry” on Pacifica radio in L.A. and Santa Barbara. Guests have included Poet Laureates, National Book Award Winners and many known and lesser-known poets. Paul’s poems have appeared in The Moth, N.Y. Quarterly, Patterson Review, Askew, Poemeleon, Alimentum, and many other journals and anthologies. He has taught creative at Loyola Marymount University and facilitates the poetry workshop at Beyond Baroque, the oldest literary institute in Los Angeles. Paul works as an actor and has performed on and off-Broadway and in numerous films and TV shows.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Friday, the 27th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice Beach Los Angeles, CA 90291
Book Club for Middle Grade Readers: Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan via Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Middle-grade readers are invited to participate in our fun monthly book discussions.
This month we will be reading: Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan.
RSVP:
Please email: akagan@lapl.org or gkim@lapl.org for the Zoom login information.
Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 10 am – 11 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-middle-grade-readers-echo-pam-munoz-ryan
Vroman’s ED: Fiction Writing Class with Diana Wagman (8 weeks) at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
This Fiction Writing Class is for writers interested in working on short stories or a novel. There will be an optional weekly exercise and suggested readings, but it is predominately a workshop to discuss and advance each other’s work, concentrating on the elements that make fiction compelling: character, point of view, setting and description, conflict and resolution. Each writer will share work twice, the ultimate goal being a complete short story or a novel chapter.
Diana Wagman is the author of six novels. Her second, Spontaneous, won the 2001 PEN West Award for Fiction. Her fourth, The Care & Feeding of Exotic Pets, was very briefly a best seller. She has had many short stories and essays published, most recently in Conjunctions and Prairie Schooner, and is an occasional contributor to the Los Angeles Times. She has taught as adjunct faculty across southern California, from Loyola Marymount to CalArts to Cal State San Bernardino.
TO SIGN UP FOR THIS WRITING CLASS, PLEASE CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE AT (626)449-5320 BY 6/27/25
$400.00 per person.
*This class will be held on the following dates – 6/28, 7/5, 7/12, 7/19, 7/26, 8/2, 8/9, & 8/16. All classes will take place in the Vroman’s Meeting Room located next door to Vroman’s Main Store in the Atrium at 709 E. Colorado Blvd. Suite 120.
If for any reason you cannot attend this set of classes you have signed up for, please give 24 hour notice, before the first class, of your cancelation in order to receive a refund.
Date: Saturday, the 28th (through August 16th)
Time: 10:30 am – 12:30 pm
Where: Vroman’s Meeting Roo – In the Atrium
Address: 709 E. Colorado Blvd., Suite 120, Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-06-28/vromans-ed-fiction-writing-class-diana-wagman-8-weeks
Mystery Book Club: Slow Horses at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Read the book and join our lively discussion!
Participants will discuss Slow Horses by Mick Herron.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 11 am
Address: 1246 Glendon Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-14
View Park Library Book Club: Master Slave Husband Wife at View Park Bebe Moore Campbell Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will read and discuss Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo.
In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.
Please visit the library, call, or email cray@library.lacounty.gov to be added to the email list.
Where: View Park Bebe Moore Campbell Library, LACL
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 3854 West 54th St., Los Angeles, CA 90056
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13680004
Book Club: The Guncle at Gardena Mayme Dear Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will read and discuss The Guncle by Steven Rowley.
When Patrick, or Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP) for short, takes on the role of primary guardian for his young niece and nephew, he sets “Guncle Rules,” but soon learns that parenting isn’t solved with treats or jokes as his eyes are opened to a new sense of responsibility.
Copies of the book are available at the Customer Service Desk.
Where: Gardena Mayme Dear Library, LACL
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 1731W. Gardena Blvd., Gardena, CA 90247
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13065760
Jenean Atwood Baynes and John H. Atwood & The Butterbean Ball Game Yesterday at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Back from a self-imposed hiatus, the indelible father & daughter writing team of John H. Atwood and Jenean Atwood Baynes is back! And with purpose, they keep the spirit of the late Mary L. Atwood, wife & mother, firmly at their side.
After the success of the 2nd edition of Blue Spots! Yellow Spots! Atwood Legacy Enterprises is proud to present The Butterbean Balls Came Yesterday! In this new publication, John & Jenean introduce a new character who faces a decision that sometimes besets us all! Come with them again as they travel into The Land of Dushkin – a mystical magical storyland for children and the young at heart!
When Pincher Dushkin asks Ushkin Dushkin for help with a surplus of butterbean balls, Ushkin has the chance to help his neighbor. Instead, he chooses to walk away. In the end, Ushkin learns that it’s good to help your neighbors when asked, and that helping others can ultimately help him too.
These imaginary, fanciful characters with human-like qualities live in a colorful make-believe world solving everyday problems. The Dushkins help readers learn how to understand the world around them, along with concepts such as critical thinking and decision-making.
Date: Saturday, the 28th
Time: 11 am
Where: Vroman’s
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
BRC Book Club: Maame via Virtual Event, LACL – Online Event
Participants will read and discuss Maame by Jessica George.
This debut novel follows Maddie, a British-Ghanaian woman in her mid-twenties, as she navigates her twenties, balancing family responsibilities with her own desires, & finds her place in the world. For ages 18+
Copies of the book are available at the Customer Service Desk.
Where: Virtual Event, LACL
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 1 pm – 2 pm
Address: Virtual Event, LACL
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13774222
Saturday Afternoon Book Club: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store at Vermont Square Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Read the book and join our lively discussion!
Participants will discuss The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride.
Where: Vermont Square Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 1 pm
Address: 1201 W. 48th St., Los Angeles, CA 90037
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/saturday-afternoon-book-club
Weekend Book Club: How to Solve Your Own Murder at Carson Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Participants will read and discuss How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin.
A limited quatity of titles are available for attendees to pick up at the library. June’s Book: How to Solve Your Own Murder: A Novel by Kristin Perrin.
Where: Carson Library, LACL
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 151 E. Carson St., Carson, CA 90745
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13770453
Fourth Saturdays Poetry: Louise Mathias & Sarah Thursday at Claremont Library – In-Person Event
Join us for our June poetry reading at the Claremont Helen Renwick public library.
Sarah Thursday is a poet, arts advocate, and music lover. She has been published in many fine journals and anthologies, interviewed by Poetry LA, and received a 2017 Best of the Net nomination. She has two full-length collections, All the Tiny Anchors and Conversations with Gravel. More info at SarahThursday.com.
Louise Mathias is the author of three full length collections, including Lark Apprentice (New Issues Press), The Traps (Four Way Books) and the recently released, What if the Invader is Beautiful (Four Way Books). Her poems have appeared widely in journals such as Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, Tin House, and the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day feature. She works in nonprofit development and capacity building, grew up in rural England and later, Los Angeles, and has lived in Joshua Tree for the past 15 years.
Where: Claremont Library
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 2 pm – 3:30 pm
Address: 208 N. Harvard Ave., Claremont, CA 91711
Miriam’s Garden Poetry Reading: William Archila, Lory Bedikian & Doug Manuel at Hyde Park Miriam Matthews Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Host and librarian Yago Cura invites you to Miriam’s Garden Poetry Reading, this month featuring the inspiring poetry of:
William Archila will present work from his new collection, S Is For.
Lory Bedikian is the author of The Book of Lamenting and Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body.
Douglas Manuel is the author of Testify and Trouble Funk.
Books provided by our esteemed Library Commissioner, Hiram Sims.
Where: Hyde Park Miriam Matthews Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 2:30 pm – 4 pm
Address: 1201 W. 48th St., Los Angeles, CA 90037
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/miriams-garden-0
Jubilations Outdoor Poetry Reading with Ann Buxie at Malibu Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join former Malibu Poet Laureate Ann Buxie for selected poets, open mic, and conversation. For adults.
Join former Malibu Poet Laureate Ann Buxie for a gathering themed to celebrate joy in a time of whelming possibilities, to give voice to the true nature of vitality modeled on the natural world, and to attend to the power of love and joy. Gathering is open air and features selected poets, open mic, and conversation.
This event is part of the City’s free poetry workshops in partnership with Malibu Library, the Malibu Poet Laureate Committee, the Malibu Arts Commission, and the Friends of the Malibu Library, offering community members engaging, educational opportunities to find expression through poetry with a renowned local poet.
Where: Malibu Library, LACL
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 2:30 pm – 4 pm
Address: 23519 West Civic Center Way, Malibu, CA 90265:30
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13744682
Keepers of Culture Poetry Reading & Open Mic at Northridge Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Join us for a multinational spoken word event that will take place on the fourth Saturday of each month on-site at the Northridge Branch Library and online via Zoom. There will be an open reading included.
RSVP:
Email Emily at eaaronson@lapl.org for Zoom link.
Where: Northridge Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 9051 Darby Ave., Northridge, CA 91325
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/keepers-culture-poetry-reading-series-0
Veena Dinavahi, with Aiden Arata, & The True Happiness Company: A Memoir at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Veena Dinavahi, in conversation with Aiden Arata, will discuss The True Happiness Company: A Memoir.
In this darkly humorous and wrenchingly sincere memoir, a young Indian American woman’s dreams of being a well-adjusted college student get wildly derailed when her struggles with mental health land her in the office of a charismatic alternative therapist and his self-help cult.
It is hard for Veena Dinavahi to live while her classmates keep dying. The high-achieving daughter of loving Indian immigrants, Veena lives in a typical white American suburb—except for its unusually high suicide rate. For years, she tries to manage her mental health in all the right ways, but nothing seems to work. Until, on a late-night Google search, Veena’s mom discovers Bob Lyon—a sixty-year-old white man in the backwoods of Georgia who claims he can make her want to live again. He calls himself “The True Happiness Company” and, as their relationship progresses, “Daddy.” Veena becomes increasingly enveloped in his strangely close-knit community, and before she knows it, she’s a college dropout, married mother of three, and Mormon convert who has gotten way too good at dismissing her gut feeling that something is wrong. But when Veena’s treatment goes too far, she slowly begins to question whether true happiness can even exist as an absolute.
In this revelatory debut, Veena traces the contours of her life to explore the question that plagued her in the years afterward: how did I fall for that? And what will it mean to move forward?
Told with unflinching clarity and shot through with incisive wit, The True Happiness Company is Veena Dinavahi’s singular exploration of what it means to lose and reclaim your identity, rethink mental illness, and learn to trust your intuition in a world determined to annihilate it.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Featuring Mark Lipman & The Vagabond Poetry Caravan Readers + Four Seasons Press Writers – In-Person Event
In-Person event featuring reading performances by Mark Lipman & The Vagabond Poetry Caravan Readers + Four Seasons Press Writers (Southern California Water).
Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.
Where: Lamanda Park Library, Pasadena
Date: Saturday, the 28th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 140 S. Altadena Dr., Pasadena, CA
Website: https://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Drag Queen Storytime: SUMMER PRIDE! at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person LGBTQIA Event
What would Pride month be without our amazing and wonderful Drag Queens??? Yup, that’s what we thought too! So join Athena Kills, Kelly K, and Scalene OnyxXx in a CELEBRATION of Pride month! Show us your PRIDE in your outfit, your enthusiasm and your love. Love will win…say it with me…Love WILL WIN!! Come join us!
Tickets are required to attend our Drag Queen Storytime. All ticket sales are donations. By purchasing tickets, you agree to comply with our code of conduct.
Proceeds will be split evenly between our Drag Queens for the joy, laughter, and love they bring to our Cellar Door community!
NOTE: Tickets & details at website.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Where: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com
Double Book Launch: C.B. Lee and Emery Lee Present: Coffee Shop in an Alternate Universe and Don’t Drag This Out at Bel Canto Books – In-Person Event
Bel Canto Books is delighted to celebrate Coffeshop in an Alternative Universe by C.B. Lee and Don’t Drag This Out by Emery Lee.
C.B. Lee is an author of young adult and middle grade fiction including the NYT Bestseller Minecraft: The Shipwreck. Their works also include the Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selected A Clash of Steel: A Treasure Island Remix, the Lambda Literary Award nominated Sidekick Squad series, Ben 10 graphic novels, Out Now: Queer We Go Again, and From A Certain Point Of View: The Empire Strikes Back. Lee’s work has been featured in NPR, Teen Vogue, Wired Magazine, Hypable, Tor’s Best of Fantasy and Sci Fi and the American Library Association’s Rainbow List. Learn more at https://cb-lee.com/.
Emery Lee is the award-winning author of Meet Cute Diary and Café Cin Lychee. E’s the founder of #Transbooks365, a community hashtag made to celebrate books by and about trans people. Coming from a university background of creative writing, e’s gone on to write entertainment news, edit literary magazines, and work as a trade book reviewer. Outside of novels, e’s written interactive fiction, short stories, and webcomics. Eir books have received starred reviews, been featured in ALA’s rainbow booklist, and been translated into multiple languages. Drawing inspiration from anime, pop punk music, and eir own cultures and identities, e seeks to tell multi-layered stories about complex characters that challenge conventional power structures and make room for marginalized readers across fandom spaces. Learn more at https://www.emeryleebooks.com/.
We will also have a special coffee popup by Shio Coffee.
Kindly RSVP so we can plan accordingly. Please stay home if you feel sick.
Where: Bel Canto Books, KUBO Long Beach
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 3976 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach, CA 90807
Philosophy Book Club: Earth Angel at Chevalier’s – In-Person Event
Join us for a discussion of Earth Angel by Madeline Cash as part of our module on psychodystopias!
In her electric debut, Madeline Cash synthesizes the godlessness of a digital age into a glimmering, sublime, life-affirming collage of stories. Earth Angel is a book like no other, the paperback that swallowed the smartphone. An Isis recruit, an adolescent beauty queen, and a childless millennial walk into a bar. A Biblical plague rains down head lice, aerial drone strikes, gender non-conforming frogs. An app throws a slumber party for a friendless office worker. Texans in the winter, the Taliban in Springtime, Teslas with ℮☥ bumper stickers, Frozen 5 in Arabic, architectural consistency laws in Laurel Canyon, the longest recorded nosebleed in history.
An unhinged jet stream that is ultramodern and poignantly timeless, capturing the angst of the post-millennial generation.
Where: Chevalier’s
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2025-06-28/philosophy-book-club
Ticketed Event: Jess Walter, with David Duchovny, & So Far Gone at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Jess Walter, in conversation with David Duchovny, will discuss and sign So Far Gone.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins—and in the propulsive spirit of Charles Portis’ True Grit—comes a hilarious, empathetic, and brilliantly provocative adventure through life in modern America, about a reclusive journalist forced back into the world to rescue his kidnapped grandchildren.
Rhys Kinnick has gone off the grid. At Thanksgiving a few years back, a fed-up Rhys punched his conspiracy-theorist son-in-law in the mouth, chucked his smartphone out a car window and fled for a cabin in the woods, with no one around except a pack of hungry raccoons.
Now Kinnick’s old life is about to land right back on his crumbling doorstep. Can this failed husband and father, a man with no internet and a car that barely runs, reemerge into a broken world to track down his missing daughter and save his sweet, precocious grandchildren from the members of a dangerous militia?
With the help of his caustic ex-girlfriend, a bipolar retired detective, and his only friend (who happens to be furious with him), Kinnick heads off on a wild journey through cultural lunacy and the rubble of a life he thought he’d left behind. So Far Gone is a rollicking, razor-sharp, and moving road trip through a fractured nation, from a writer who has been called “a genius of the modern American moment” (Philadelphia Inquirer).
This is an in-store ticketed event. Tickets include one entry and one copy of So Far Gone.
NOTE: Ticket purchase at website.
Date: Saturday, the 28th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Where: Vroman’s
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Historical Fiction Book Club: The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Participants will discuss The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye by Briony Cameron.
This “thrilling, swashbuckling story” (People) based on true events illuminates a woman of color’s rise to power as one of the few female pirate captains to sail the Caribbean, and a forbidden love story that will shape the course of history.
In the tumultuous town of Yáquimo, Santo Domingo, Jacquotte Delahaye is an up-and-coming shipwright, but her ambitions are bound by the confines of her self-seeking French father. When her way of life and the delicate balance of power in the town are threatened, she is forced to flee her home and become a woman on the run along with a motley crew of refugees, including a mysterious young woman named Teresa.
Jacquotte and her band become indentured servants to the infamous Blackhand, a ruthless pirate captain who rules his ship with an iron fist. As they struggle to survive, Jacquotte finds herself unable to resist Teresa despite their differences. When Blackhand hatches a dangerous scheme to steal a Portuguese shipment of jewels, Jacquotte must rely on her wits, resourcefulness, and friends to survive. But she discovers there is a grander, darker scheme of treachery at play, and she ultimately must decide what price she is willing to pay to secure a better future for them all.
Briony Cameron is a queer disabled writer based in Cardiff, UK. Her father was of Jamaican, Panamanian, and Cuban heritage and her mother is of English and Welsh heritage. She studied English and creative writing at university, graduating in 2020. She has a keen love of history that began with her first reading of The Three Musketeers as a child. She has been writing since she could pick up a pencil, first emulating the comic books her dad raised her on before moving on to novels. In 2020 her short story “The Nantes Affair” was longlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Short Story Competition, and her debut novel, The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye, was longlisted that same year for the Penguin WriteNow Competition, and in 2021 it was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Prize. Alongside writing, she is an avid knitter and she loves to play videogames and spend time with her dog, Keanu.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 5 pm
Where: 473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/historical-fiction-book-club-ballad-jacquotte-delahaye
With Love Open Mic & Mixer at Café con Libros, Pomona – In-Person LGBTQ+ Event
Looking for a space to make new friends?
Come to the With Love Open Mic & Mixer at @cafeconlibrospress in downtown Pomona on June 28th (5:30pm). This is a space to celebrate LGBTQIA+ API/Filipinx creativity. All are welcome!
This event is part of the With Love and Pride Events, a special series of community events centering queer API & Filipino/a/x voices, identities, and stories.
RSVP and details at website.
Where: Café con Libros, Pomona
Date: Saturday, the 28th
Time: 5:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 280 W. 2nd St, Pomona, CA 91766
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DLD6Zk8Sc1x/?hl=en&img_index=1
Nervous Ghost Press Open Mic – Online YouTube Event
Nervous Ghost Press Open Mic is offered on the last Saturday of the month online via YouTube.
All styles and media, genres, and voices are welcome to participate, always. Our open mic is truly open and it allows us to live our mission and work toward realizing our vision in bringing the arts to all people. Art is what binds us, heals us, and saves us. Come join the party.
Where: Café con Libros, Pomona
Date: Saturday, the 28th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: Online YouTube Event
Website: https://www.nervousghostpress.org
Staged Reading of Cumming Down the Mountain: A Church Retreat in Three Acts at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
ONE NIGHT ONLY: A Sacred Staged Reading Saturday, June 28th
Doors at 6:30 PM | Show at 7 PM sharp
(True love waits, but we do not!)
In blessed partnership with North Figueroa Bookshop (praise be to local biz and Pride Month)
Say yes to the altar call. RSVP at website.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Saturday, the 28th
Time: 7 pm (Doors at 6:30 pm)
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St, Los Angeles, CA 90042
L.A. Book Event: Hannah Brown, with Taylor Capizola, & The Four Engagements of Sybil Rain at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Hannah Brown, in conversation with Taylor Capizola, will discuss The Four Engagements of Sybil Rain.
A book signing will follow. This is a ticketed event.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Saturday the 28th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 3806 Main St., Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://www.therippedbodice.com/events-and-tickets
Poetry Night with Cathy Lin Che, Michelle Peñaloza, and Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo at Sunny’s Bookshop – In-Person Event
Sunny’s Bookshop – Located inside our floral shop Shades of Petals (Tarzana, CA)
Join us for a poetry night with authors Cathy Linh Che, Michelle Peñaloza, and Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo! There will be music, drinks, mingling, and of course, poetry readings.
We’re so excited to be collaborating with Byway Books, a pop-up poetry bookstore based in Louisville, Kentucky. Byway Books is built to share & gather around the power of poetry in our beautiful, burning world. They aim to platform diverse voices in contemporary poetry and beyond who challenge the status quo and confront the complex issues of our time in their work.
Cathy Linh Che is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of Becoming Ghost (Washington Square Press, 2025), Split (Alice James Books) and co-author, with Kyle Lucia Wu, of the children’s book An Asian American A to Z: a Children’s Guide to Our History (Haymarket Books). Her video installation Appocalips is an Open Call commission with The Shed NY, and her film We Were the Scenery won the Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction at the Sundance Film Festival. She teaches as Core Faculty in Poetry at the low residency MFA program in Creative Writing at Antioch University in Los Angeles. She lives in New York City.
Michelle Peñaloza is the author of All The Words I Can Remember Are Poems, winner of the 2024 Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award and the James Laughlin Award, awarded by The Academy of American Poets to recognize and support a second book of poetry forthcoming in the next calendar year. (Persea Books, 2025). She is also the author of Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire, winner of the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk National Poetry Prize (Inlandia Books, 2019), and two chapbooks, landscape/heartbreak (Two Sylvias, 2015), and Last Night I Dreamt of Volcanoes (Organic Weapon Arts, 2015). Some of her honors include the Frederick Bock Prize from the Poetry Foundation as well as grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, the Community Foundation of Mendocino County, Upstate Creative Corps, 4Culture, Artist Trust, Literary Arts, and PAWA (Philippine American Writers and Artists).
Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and author of Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites (Mouthfeel Press) and Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications). A former Steinbeck Fellow and Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, Bermejo’s poem “Battlegrounds” was featured at Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, On Being’s Poetry Unbound, and the anthology, Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World (W.W. Norton). More poems and essays can be found at Acentos Review, Huizache, LA Review of Books, The Offing, [Pank], Santa Fe Writers Project, and other journals. Her She teaches poetry and creative writing with Antioch University, MFA and UCLA Extension and is the director of Women Who Submit.
Where: Sunny’s Bookshop
Date: Saturday, the 28th
Time: 7 pm – 10 pm
Address: 18604 Ventura Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 91356
Melrose Trading Post: 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 29th
Time: 10 am – 5 pm (market); 11 am – 5 pm (poets on demand)
Address: 7850 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046
Website: https://www.instagram.com
Kids Storytime with Dan McCauley & Thank You, Sun at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Kids Event
Join us every Wednesday and Saturday for a storytime amongst the cozy shelves at Village Well!
This June 28, we’re delighted to welcome back store favorite Dan McCauley, who will be reading from his newest picture book Thank You, Sun.
From the warmth of the sun’s early rays to the spectacular colors of sunset, a young boy connects to nature and finds joy throughout the day.
As he awakes in the morning, a child feels the sunshine through his window. The boy appreciates his connection to the sun, despite how far away it is, just as he appreciates his connection with his mama.
Excited and energized, he spends the day with Mama. They plant seeds, splash each other with water, and dance—all while letting their minds find peace. As the day winds down, they take a walk up their neighborhood hill, letting go of stress and marveling at the beautiful colors of the sunset.
The Thank You, World series features lyrical stories about appreciating nature, connecting with our senses, and being present in the moment. These soothing books help young readers let go of stress, observe without judgment, and remain optimistic—even when the sun isn’t shining. Thank You, Sun:
Dan McCauley is a writer and teacher from New York City and is based in Los Angeles. With over a decade of experience working with young people, Dan cares deeply about storytelling, teaching, and child and adolescent mental health. Dan is the author of the Thank You, World children’s book series.
Reserve your seat on EVENTBRITE!
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Sunday the 29th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events
Anime Sundays at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Teen Event
Hi Teens! Come and get comfortable, hang out, and binge on your favorite or new anime!
Where: Central Library, LAPL.
Date: Sunday, the 29th
Time: 1 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/anime-sundays
Book Launch: Tim Cummings, with James Roday Rodriguez, & The Lightning People Play at Chevalier’s Bookstore – In-Person Event
Tim Cummings, in conversation with James Roday Rodriguez, will discuss The Lightning People Play.
Fourteen-year-old Kirby Renton is a gifted theatre kid who wants to fix things: his dads’ marriage, his younger brother’s epilepsy. When ten-year-old Baxter’s seizures start involving visits from “the lightning people,” who descend from the sky and show him strange symbols, Kirby knows he needs to protect his brother, but how? He thinks he’s found the answer when the neurologist advises his family to consider a seizure-alert dog, but the cost is too much for his family to afford.
Determined to raise the money himself, Kirby enlists his best friends and a crew of brilliant teens from his theatre troupe to put on a play in his epic forest of a backyard. At first, the play brings its own pressures as the drama between Kirby’s dads worsens and his fears for his brother intensify. But little does Kirby know of the magic that awaits him and his friends-and the portals that will open-from his daring to make a difference.
From the award-winning author of Alice the Cat comes another intriguing tale set in the fictional town of Weirville, where more strange magic transforms the lives of the inimitable teens who live there.
Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 29th
Time: 2 pm – 3:30 pm
Where: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/book
Book Launch: Victoria Monet, with Gabrielle Union, & Everywhere You Are at Reparations Club Off-site at NeueHouse Hollywood – In-Person Event
Victoria Monet, in conversation with Gabrielle Union, will discuss Everywhere You Are.
A conversation with author & grammy®-award winning artist Victoria Monét, to celebrate the launch of her debut children’s book Everywhere You Are, moderated by actress Gabrielle Union!
Where: NeueHouse Hollywood
Date: Sunday the 29th
Time: 2 pm – 3:30 pm (Doors at 1 pm)
Where: 6121 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90028
Taco Shop Poetry with Adolfo Guzman Lopez at Sonoratown, Long Beach – In-Person Event
ALL AGES
Part of the LA Design Festival 2025 | Design Futurism collection
LAist’s Adolfo Guzman-Lopez revives 90s taco shop poetry with guests, music & readings from his book California Southern: 1992–2025.
With guest poets and musicians, Adolfo Guzman-Lopez conjures the taco shop poetry readings he co-founded in the 1990s in San Diego, Tijuana, and beyond. This is street corner poetry, poetry that brings to life memories of our changed neighborhoods, taco shop poetry that affirms that taco shops are sites of cultural affirmation and crossroads for various communities. Read tacos! Eat Poetry! Adolfo will read from his new collection,
Where: Sonoratown
Date: Sunday the 29th
Time: 3 pm – 4:30 pm
Where: 244 East 3rd St., Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/adolfo-guzman-lopez-taco-shop-poetry-tickets-1383252769269
ART as a Tool of Escalation at All Power Books – In-Person Event
How can art be a force that pushes the movement further along? Can it be a tool for building militancy, for developing discipline, for teaching tactics and tools, or for expanding risk tolerance among the broader, already agitated public? How can it be used to help answer the demands of our historic political moment? Join the workshop on the last Sunday of June to discuss these questions, and to design (and build!?) our own art installation that functions as a tool of escalation.
There is limited space, so an RSVP is required. Reservations will go live at 6pm PDT on Sunday, June 22.
Where: All Power Books
Date: Sunday the 29th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Where: 4749 W Adams Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90016
Website: https://www.instagram.com
Author Event: Rick Avery & Vasquez at Flintridge Bookstore – In-Person Event
Rick Avery will present and discussVasquez.
A DRAMATIC FICTIONAL ACCOUNT OF A HISTORIC FIGURE
1800’s California, still a Mexican Territory, saw the Gold Rush bring in immigrants from all over the world who spoke hundreds of different languages. The Mexicans referred to them as Anglos. Tiburcio Vasquez was just a boy when he witnessed the legacy of violence and crime that this change would bring, shaping his destiny. He grew up in the dusty streets of Monterey, California, watching as foreigners encroached on his homeland, bringing with them greed and destruction.
As he honed his skills as a horseman and a marksman, he saw firsthand the injustices suffered by his people. He witnessed families torn apart, land stolen, and women abused, and he knew that he could not stand idly by. So, he took up arms by becoming a bandit against those who sought to oppress his people, becoming a legend among the Mexican community. But with each robbery and each murder, Tiburcio could feel the darkness creeping into his soul. He was caught multiple times and escaped multiple times from San Quentin Prison.
Vasquez was and educated poet and dancer loved by the ladies, but feared by all men. This novel is a dramatic fictional account of his life from birth to his hanging at the young age of thirty-nine. At the time, the Mexican community saw him as a Robin Hood character. To this day, there are monuments that bear his name.
Vasquez is Rick’s sixth book. His first was an autobiography co-authored with Tom Bleecker, A Life at Risk. This was followed by a photography book about the homeless in Los Angeles, Sidewalks. Next was a historical adventure about two pilots flying from Sydney to London in the 1963 air race, The Challenge, of the Spirit of Sydney. His career as one of the top stuntmen in Hollywood was published as Too Old to Tell Lies. Hardened Warriors was a book about the Master Boxers who compete into their seventies.
Rick has a Bachelor of Arts degree, Summa Cum Laude from Southern New Hampshire University. He lives in Southern California with his wife and family
Where: Flintridge Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 29th
Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm
Where: 858 Foothill Boulevard, La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011
Website: https://www.flintridgebooks.com/instore-events/2025/6/29/author-appearance-rick-avery-vasquez
The People’s Mic Event Series at The Glendale Room – In-Person Event
The People’s Mic: We Can’t Read event will be held at The Glendale Room (near L,A,)
Hosted by: Lizz Hader
$5 to perform
Free to attend
20 spots only
Lottery
Where: The Glendale Room
Date: Sunday the 29th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Where: 127 Artsakh Ave, Glendale, CA 9120The People’s Mic:
The Amor Book Tour: Sofia Aguilar & Amor at Matilija Lending Library – In-Person Event
The Amor Book Tour begins today, and features Sofia Aguilar presenting her book Amor, with guest readers: Salma Alejo and Shandela Contreras.
Where: Matilija Lending Library
Date: Sunday the 29th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Where: 3571 Lexington Ave., El Monte, CA 91731
Website: https://www.sofiaaguilar.com/events/2025/6/29/the-amor-book-tour-book-launch
Los Angeles Literature 