Hosted by LA Poet Society’s maestra, Jessica M. Wilson, MFA and human. 🙂

Come for writing prompts, pens, journals, community. Donations welcome.

All are welcome.

Topic: Lyric poetry

See you all soon.

Where: Bodevi Wine & Espresso Bar

Date: Monday the 4^th

Time: 5:30 pm – 7 pm

Join our book club as we discuss a different mystery book each month. This month’s selection is Coram House by Bailey Seybolt. Copies of the book are available at the customer service desk for checkout. For Adults.

Where: Lake Los Angeles Library, LACL

Date: Monday the 4^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 16921 East Avenue O, #A, Palmdale, CA 93591

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14176537

Vulnerability as a Superpower: Yesika Salgado Workshop via tothebloomworkshop@gmail.com – Online Zoom Event

Join a 4 Session Writing Workshop facilitated by Yesika Salgado on Mondays, August 5^th through August 25^th via Zoom online.

$150 registration. Initial deposit required to ensure registration.

To register email tothebloomworkshop@gmail.com.

Time: 6 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)

All Write Nights will be donation-based and, as with all of our events, we do not tolerate bigotry or harassment in any form.

*please note that we host a second Write Night each month for QTBIPOC (Queer, Transgender, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) writers only, to create a safe and dedicated space for all members of our community*

NOTE: See site for link and details.

Where: Chevalier’s

Date: Monday the 4^th

Time: 6:45 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2025-08-04/open-write-night

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 4^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92501

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

Monday Night Fiction Workshop via Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – Online Zoom Event

This free Monday Night Community Writing Workshop led by Raquel Baker is a workshop in which participants are asked to bring copies of 2-3 pages of fiction to read, and to use for critique and discussion. Registration is required.

Raquel Baker earned a PhD in English Literary Studies from the University of Iowa and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Postcolonial and Transnational Literatures at California State University Channel Islands, teaching courses on creative writing and contemporary African literatures. Raquel has published poetry in Africology and The Arrow; fiction in Enculturation, The Daily Palette, The Womanist, and Crux; and non-fiction in Little Village; and has done readings with the Ventura County Poetry project. Raquel 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 4^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)

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

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

Let Francesca help you with all aspects of your writing!

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

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

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Tuesday the 5^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Where: Main Library, SMPL

Date: Tuesday the 5^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11 am

Delve into the fascinating world of birds through astonishing photography and clear explanations in this absorbing global guide, The Bird Book: The Stories, Science, and History of Birds by Dr. Jay Jinsing Falk.

Birds are dinosaurs with a history going back millions of years. Our fascination with them runs deep in history, and our close association is reflected in creation stories, myths, legends, songs, and children’s stories.

This book and presentation explore:

Both the natural history of birds and that deep cultural connection. From their evolution and anatomy to their behavior and diversity.

Hawks, finches, swans, or birds of paradise, moving the focus away from a predictable species-by-species account and allowing for truly global coverage.

The bold nature of European Robins and why they are associated with Christmas; the mythical Phoenix, which rises from the ashes; and learn about eagles, from their hunting prowess to their myriads of stories and symbolism.

Packed with information, beautiful photography, and illustrations, The Bird Book is a must-have for nature enthusiasts. Register today to learn more about your very own backyard friends!

Dr. Jay Jinsing Falk is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the University of Colorado. He is an evolutionary biologist and behavioral ecologist fascinated by the diversity that can be found within species, especially in sexual traits. During his PhD, he began studying White-necked Jacobin hummingbirds as a STRI Short-Term Fellow, and later as a Smithsonian Predoctoral Fellow. His findings, that some females of this species look like males while others do not, has become the cornerstone of his research program. He is inspired by the dizzying array of feather coloration that can be found in hummingbirds. After completing his PhD at Cornell University, he moved to the University of Washington to study hummingbird movement and metabolism. Now at the University of Colorado, he is investigating the genetics and development of feather coloration. Jay currently lives in Gamboa, Panamá, where he studies the hummingbirds that visit the feeders at his house on the edge of the forest.

AGE GROUP: | Adults

Where: Virtual Event, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 5^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14119587

Virtual Book Club: John Scalzi & When the Moon Hits Your Eye via La Crescenta Library, LACL – Online Event

Join us weekly on Zoom on Tuesday mornings at 11 am for the Virtual Book Club. In August we will be discussing When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi. For adults.

Please contact Marta Wiggins at mwiggins@library.lacounty.gov for your link to join.

Each week we read and discuss 1/4 of the book. Please see the weekly discussion breakdown below.

Week 1: August 5: Days 1 – 7 Pages: 5 – 87

Week 2: August 12: Days 8 – 12 Pages: 88 – 161

Week 3: August 19: Days 13 – 20 Pages: 162 -242

Week 4: August 26: Days 21 -36,524 Pages: 243 to the end of the book.

The moon has turned into cheese. Now humanity has to deal with it. For some it’s an opportunity. For others it’s a moment to question their faith: In God, in science, in everything. Still others try to keep the world running in the face of absurdity and uncertainty. And then there are the billions looking to the sky and wondering how a thing that was always just there is now…something absolutely impossible. Astronauts and billionaires, comedians and bank executives, professors and presidents, teenagers and terminal patients at the end of their lives—over the length of an entire lunar cycle, each get their moment in the moonlight. To panic, to plan, to wonder and to pray, to laugh and to grieve. All in a kaleidoscopic novel that goes all the places you’d expect, and then to so many places you wouldn’t. It’s a wild moon-age daydream. Ride this rocket.

Where: La Crescenta Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 5^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)

Paul is living under an assumed name in a small New England town with a million-dollar bounty on his head. When his security is breached, Paul is forced to flee into the New Hampshire wilderness to evade Russian operatives who can seemingly predict his every move. Six years ago, Paul was a rising star on Wall Street who fell in love with a beautiful photographer—unaware that her father was a Russian oligarch and the object of considerable interest from several US intelligence agencies. Now, to save his own life, Paul must unravel a decades-old conspiracy that extends to the highest reaches of the government.

Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 5^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13896302

Women and Books: All the Water in the World at West Hollywood Library, LACL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Join participants to discuss All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall. For adults.

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

Summary provided by the publisher:

In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river towards what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they’ve saved.

Where: West Hollywood Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 5^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Participants will discuss Nothing Serious: A Novel by Emily J. Smith.

A scintillating debut about a disillusioned tech executive who goes into an obsessive spiral when her best friend-—and longtime crush—is implicated in a woman’s death.

Edie Walker’s life is not going as planned. At thirty-five, she feels stuck: in her career, in her love life, and in her tiny San Francisco studio apartment. It doesn’t help that her best friend, Peter Masterson, is basically the über successful male version of her—and she’s hopelessly, unrequitedly in love with him. But when Peter breaks up with his girlfriend of seven years, Edie thinks her life might finally be turning around. He’ll discover how toxic dating app culture is and realize that Edie has been right for him all along.

Except Peter almost immediately lands a date with Anaya Thomas, a gorgeous, whip-smart professor and writer of feminist literature who even Edie—reared in the culture of tech bros—is smitten by. Unlike the women Peter has dated before, Anaya is like an alternate reality version of Edie—one with shampoo commercial hair and a meaningful career, who definitely doesn’t spend her weekends scrolling social media alone in her apartment. It’s only a matter of time before Peter falls head over heels for this woman; Edie herself is infatuated—maybe even a little obsessed—after one meeting.

Then, Anaya is found dead in her apartment. Right after a date with Peter.

Provocative, tense, and compulsively readable, Nothing Serious is a shrewdly observed, astonishingly heartfelt debut combining a darkly funny takedown of online dating with an honest examination of the challenges women face every day—but don’t dare discuss—from a brilliant new voice in contemporary fiction.

Emily J. Smith is a writer and tech professional based in Brooklyn. She has led teams at top tech companies and founded the dating app, Chorus. She holds a B.S in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell, and an M.B.A. from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Her writing has appeared in Catapult, The Rumpus, Slate, Vice, WashPo, and others. This is her first novel.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Tuesday the 5^th

Time: 6 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/feminist-book-club-nothing-serious

The Darkest Hour Book Club: The Oligarch’s Daughter at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – Online Event

Participants will discuss The Oligarch’s Daughter by Joseph Finder. Copies available at the library. For adults.

Please email Adult/Teen Librarian, Katie McGaha, at kmcgaha@library.lacounty.gov for the virtual link.

Paul is living under an assumed name in a small New England town with a million-dollar bounty on his head. When his security is breached, Paul is forced to flee into the New Hampshire wilderness to evade Russian operatives who can seemingly predict his every move. Six years ago, Paul was a rising star on Wall Street who fell in love with a beautiful photographer—unaware that her father was a Russian oligarch and the object of considerable interest from several US intelligence agencies. Now, to save his own life, Paul must unravel a decades-old conspiracy that extends to the highest reaches of the government.

Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 5^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

The critically acclaimed author of the “crazily enjoyable” (The New York Times) Whalefall returns with an immersive, cinematic novel about five World War I soldiers who stumble upon a fallen angel that could hold the key to ending the war.

Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly mission: venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade.

What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed, and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell.

Angel Down plunges you into the heart of World War I and weaves a polyphonic tale of survival, supernatural wonder, and moral conflict.

Daniel Kraus is a New York Times bestselling writer of novels, TV, and film. His latest novel, Whalefall, received a front-cover review in the New York Times Book Review, won the Alex Award, was an L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist, and was a Best Book of 2023 from NPR, the New York Times, Amazon, Chicago Tribune, and more.

With Guillermo del Toro, he co-authored The Shape of Water, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus co-authored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series. He cowrote The Living Dead and Pay the Piper with legendary filmmaker George A. Romero. Kraus’s The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Top 10 Books of the Year. Kraus has won the Bram Stoker Award, Scribe Award, two Odyssey Awards (for both Rotters and Scowler), and has appeared multiple times as Library Guild selections, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, and more.

Kraus’s work has been translated into over 20 languages. He lives with his wife in Chicago. Visit him at danielkraus.com.

Tananarive Due is an award-winning author who teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA. A leading voice in Black speculative fiction for more than 20 years, Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award, and her writing has been included in best-of-the-year anthologies. Her books include The Reformatory (winner of a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Chautauqua Prize, Bram Stoker Award, Shirley Jackson Award, World Fantasy Award, and a New York Times Notable Book), The Wishing Pool and Other Stories, Ghost Summer: Stories, My Soul to Keep, and The Good House. She and her late mother, civil rights activist Patricia Stephens Due, co-authored Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights.

She was an executive producer on Shudder’s groundbreaking documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. She and her husband/collaborator, Steven Barnes, wrote “A Small Town” for Season 2 of Jordan Peele’s “The Twilight Zone” on Paramount Plus, and two segments of Shudder’s anthology film Horror Noire. They also co-wrote their Black Horror graphic novel The Keeper, illustrated by Marco Finnegan. Due and Barnes co-host a podcast, “Lifewriting: Write for Your Life!” She and her husband live with their son, Jason.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore

Date: Tuesday the 5^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-08-05/daniel-kraus-tananarive-due

Creativity Book Club: The Magic Words at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Do you think of yourself as creative, or wish that you were? Do you get inspired by a book of reflections, or do you prefer an actual workbook with tasks and prompts? Do you wish you had more people to talk with about painting, poetry or pottery?

Here is the time and the place; you just need to be here with us. Be a part of the start – and let 2025 be your most creatively satisfying year yet!

About the book:

Discover the joy of expressing what’s inside you, with fill-in-the-blank poems that are sparking a creative movement.

We all have stories inside us—whether or not we consider ourselves “creative.” Poet and novelist Joseph Fasano has developed a remarkable tool that allows anyone to experience the joy of creative expression. The fifty simple yet powerful prompts in this book are poems that you complete yourself. By adding just a few words of your own, you create something beautiful and wholly new—that comes from within.

Discover the magic of putting your feelings into words—and be inspired by sample poems submitted by people of all ages and walks of life. Exploring themes like friendship, love, grief, gratitude, and hope, these inclusive, accessible, and deceptively simple poems express powerful emotional truths—written by you.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Tuesday the 5^th

Time: 6:30 am – 7:30 am

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

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

Free event. 21+

Note: Please RSVP at site.

Where: The Aftermath Bar

Date: Tuesday the 5^h

Time: 7 pm – 10 pm

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

Kevin Smokler, in conversation with Jessica Sharzer and Felicia Pride, will discuss Break the Frame: Conversations with Women Filmmakers.

In the twenty-first century alone, women filmmakers have succeeded at directing every size, genre, and style of motion picture. Their movies have won Oscars (Free Solo), made actors into household names (Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone), received induction into the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry (Real Women Have Curves), and become worldwide box office phenomena (Captain Marvel, Deep Impact). Nevertheless in 2023, the year of Barbie, women directed only 12% of the top 250 movies in America. demonstrating how far moviemaking remains from gender parity. When women filmmakers succeed, they do so against these odds.

Break the Frame is a collection of 24 career-spanning interviews with America’s celebrated, reigning, and rising women filmmakers. Each conversation considers the director’s complete filmography as a map of their evolving artistry and evidence of their unassailable contributions to a historically misogynist industry. Author Kevin Smokler listens as women filmmakers speak to the struggle and triumphs of developing and directing movies that are shaping how the film business sees women in the director’s chair, and how their audiences see themselves and each other. This book is both an opportunity and invitation to devote one’s time, admiration and enthusiasm to movies directed by women.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Tuesday the 5^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Natalie Guerrero is a Dominican and Puerto Rican writer based in Los Angeles. Her writing has been featured in publications such as Electric Literature, Byline, Goop, and Blavity. My Train Leaves at Three is her first novel.

Note: Please RSVP at site.

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Tuesday the 5^h

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Finalist for the International Booker Prize and the National Book Award

A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor.

On an unnamed island, objects are disappearing: first hats, then ribbons, birds, roses…Most of the inhabitants are oblivious to these changes, while those few able to recall the lost objects live in fear of the draconian Memory Police, who are committed to ensuring that what has disappeared remains forgotten. When a young writer discovers that her editor is in danger, she concocts a plan to hide him beneath her floorboards, and together they cling to her writing as the last way of preserving the past. Powerful and provocative, The Memory Police is a stunning novel about the trauma of loss.

Yoko Ogawa has won every major Japanese literary award. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, and Zoetrope: All-Story. Her works include The Diving Pool, a collection of three novellas; The Housekeeper and the Professor; Hotel Iris; and Revenge. She lives in Hyogo.

Note: Please RSVP at site.

Where: pages, a bookstore

Date: Tuesday the 5^h

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90042

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2025-08-05/other-worlds-book-club

Sip n Up: Sunless Sea Poetry Series & Open Mic Show at Qusqo Bistro and Gallery – In-Person Event

The Sunless Sea Poetry and Spoken Word Show is an open mic event offered on the First Tuesday of the month and performed at Qusqo Bistro on Santa Monica Blvd, near Barrington, in West Los Angeles. Our concept of poetry is broad and collaborative, so we are open to musicians, comedians, visual artists and creatives in any other medium and genre. We encourage everybody to share their art and influences here and in person at the show. We also encourage promotion, networking, and collaboration. Enjoy!

Where: Qusqo Bistro and Gallery

Date: Tuesday, the 5^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 11633 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90025

There will be a book signing to follow.

RSVP required, Ticketed event.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Tuesday the 5^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

From the award-winning author of Denial comes a novel about a New Age writer whose life is irrevocably changed when a devastating climate disaster forces him to confront his belief in the existence of God.

What if God spoke to you? Would you hear Him? Would you obey His command?

Arthur Zinn, an author of high-end spiritual texts, has fallen in love with a librarian married to a newfound close friend. When an environmental disaster threatens her life, Arthur’s frantic prayers lead to a mystifying event that challenges his assumptions about the nature of the universe and the divine. In God and Sex, Oregon Book Award winner and acclaimed screenwriter Jon Raymond masterfully entwines themes of ecology, mortality, art, faith, and the tangled complexities of carnal love.

Jon Raymond is the author of five works of fiction, including the Oregon Book Award–winning story collection Livability and the Oregon Book Award–nominated novel Denial. As a screenwriter, he has collaborated on numerous films with the director Kelly Reichardt, including Old Joy, Wendy and Lucy, and First Cow. He also received an Emmy Award nomination for his screenwriting on the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce directed by Todd Haynes and starring Kate Winslet. He was the editor of Plazm Magazine, associate and contributing editor at Tin House magazine, and a member of the Board of Directors at Literary Arts. His writing has appeared in Zoetrope, Playboy, Tin House, The Village Voice, Artforum, Bookforum, and many other places. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

James Ponsoldt hails from Athens, Georgia. His films, which include “The End of the Tour,” “The Spectacular Now,” and “Smashed” (among others), have been recognized by the National Board of Review, Independent Spirit Awards, and Sundance Film Festival.

His television work has been nominated for Golden Globes, Emmy Awards, and Critics Choice Awards. He’s directed pilots and executive produced shows such as “Master of None” and “Sorry for Your Loss.” Most recently, he executive produced and directed the pilot and multiple episodes of “Shrinking” for Apple TV, Amazon’s “Daisy Jones & The Six,” as well as the series “Running Point” for Netflix and multiple episodes of an upcoming series for Marvel.

He’s currently working on a documentary, the now-filming Netflix limited series “The Altruists,” as well as his next feature film.

Where: Skylight

Date: Tuesday, the 5^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Katia Moraes’ cultural engagement introduces Brasil through Language, poetry, music, dance and visual ar. Moraes is known for Os Dez Mandamentos (2015), Woman on Top (2000) and Cowboy Bebop (1998).

Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event

Date: Tuesday, the 5^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Tuesday Night Cafe is a flagship free public arts and performance series. Launched in 1999, TNC has since become one of the longest-running free arts series in Downtown LA and is the oldest Asian American mic series in the country.

The series runs on the 1st & 3rd Tuesday of each month, April through October, and features a curated program of multidisciplinary visual and performing art as well as an open mic section.

We’ve got music, we’ve got poetry, we’ve got cars, we’ve got cyborgs. @surrija is baking. Printed bandanas by Father&Son Against Ice. @lianne.cosplay is vending. @waxstyles is spinning. Make a summer night plan and come through with someone you’ve wanted to see.

FEATURING:

lotti4evr is a Pinay immigrant who writs and singing songs for healing, remembering, reclaiming.

Puberty for Humans is a sci-fi educational short film on adolescent development.

@surrija

Father&Son Against ICE (@renmaicha + @meyamajoy)

@lianne.cosplay

@waxstyles

Want to perform for our Open Mic? Make sure to sign up for our lottery by 6:40 pm, there will only be 3 spaces available, two performances per performer per season please! We may ask to review your content. Please read the rules at https://www.tuesdaynightproject.org/how-to-perform.

As a reminder, masking is required in our space, and we will have masks available on site. If you can’t join us in-person, we will continue to stream our shows on YouTube in our link in bio.

Where: Tuesday Night Café

Date: Tuesday, the 5^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

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

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

Masks are encouraged.

Where: Greenway Court Theatre

Date: Tuesday, the 5^th

Time: 9 pm – 11 pm

Address: 544 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036

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.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 8:30 am – 9:30 am

Held the first Wednesday of each month at the San Dimas Senior Center, 201 E Bonita Ave.

This month’s selection is The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters. Copies are available for check out at the circulation desk. For Adults

In The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters, a Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret. For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.

Where: San Dimas Senior Center

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am

Address: 201 E. Bonita Ave., San Dimas, CA 91773

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13472914

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

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

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Join us as we read All Fours by Miranda July. For adults.

Books available for check-out at the library. New members welcome.

Where: Westlake Village Library, LACL

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 12 pm – 1 pm

Address: 31220 W. Oak Crest Dr., Westlake Village, CA 91361

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14176781

Book Club: The Christie Affair at Chatworth Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Join us to discuss The Christie Affair by Nina De Gramont (2022 – 311 pages).

Miss Nan O’Dea became the mistress of Archie Christie, luring him away from his wife, Agatha Christie. Why destroy another woman’s marriage, and how is it tied to the 11 days Agatha went missing?

Email sstamm@lapl.org for Zoom link.

Where: Chatsworth Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 1:30 pm

Address: 21062 Devonshire St., Chatsworth, CA 91311

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

Mystery Book Club: The Queens of Crime at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss Marie Benedict’s The Queens of Crime. For adults.

Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13985637

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

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

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

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: KPFK 90.7 FM

Date: Wednesday, the 6^th

Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm

Address: On-air Event (live)

Copies are available to check out at the customer service desk.

Where: East Los Angeles Library, LACL

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm

Address: 4837 E. 3^rd St., Los Angeles, CA 90022

Participants will read and discuss Separate Is Never Equal by Duncan Tonatiuh.

RSVP:

Please register here and for more information, email cquinn@lapl.org.

Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 4 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Participants will read and discuss Separate Is Never Equal by Duncan Tonatiuh.

RSVP:

Please register here and for more information, email cquinn@lapl.org.

Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 4 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

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

2^nd & 3^rd Grade Book Club: Annika and the Great Dog Rescue at pages, a bookstore – In-Person Kids Event

2nd & 3rd Grade Book Club meets monthly, generally on the first Wednesday of each month at 4:30 pm.

Participants will discuss Annika and the Great Dog Rescue, a fun-and-friendship-filled follow-up to Maven Takes the Lead in the must-read middle grade series from Girl Scouts of the USA, starring a group of fifth graders who love making the world a better place.

We read new releases of early grade fiction. Book selection is done by voting at each meeting for the following month’s meeting.

RSVP:

Please RSVP to amy@pagesabookstore.com.

Where: pages, a bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 4:30 pm – 5 pm

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

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2025-08-06/2nd-3rd-grade-book-club

Finding Your Voice at Junipero Serra Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Finding Your Voice is a poetry workshop designed to help you explore self-expression while crafting poems that resonate with unique perspectives. Through guided exercises and supportive feedback, this workshop will teach you about poetic styles and themes. You will also gain confidence in sharing your work and connect with a community of fellow writers.

Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned poet looking to refresh your craft, this space is for you. No prior experience needed. Participants can also bring in copies of their poems if they would like feedback.

For more information, please contact the Literacy Coordinator at (213) 228-7037 x70719 or juniperoliteracy@lapl.org.

Where: Junipero Serra Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 5 pm

Address: 4607 S. Main Street, Los Angeles, CA 90037

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/finding-your-voice

Writing Workshop for Teens at Lancaster Library, LACL – In-Person Teen Event

Join us as we put pen to paper and let the creativity flow. Create new worlds, dive into depths of poetry, or write your own narrative. We’ll chat about story ideas, characters and writing exercises to spark your imagination! For ages 13 – 17.

This program is part of LA County Library’s My Brother’s Keeper mentoring program and features an MBK Peer Advocate as a co-host and youth mentor. Funding is provided by the LA County Department of Public Health.

Parents and guardians: Please be aware that refreshments will be served at this program. A list of ingredients will be available.

Where: Lancaster Library, LACL

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

Address: 601 W. Lancaster Blvd., Lancaster, CA 93534

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14082421

Be the Change: Social Justice Writing Workshop with James Coats – Online Event

Be the Change, a Social Justice Writing Workshop, is held every 1^st Wednesday of the month and led by poet and author James Coats.

Workshop is free: name your own price.

NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.

Where: Online Event

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event Zoom ID: 826 5843 0669 Password: justice

Website: N/A

History Book Club: Path to Power at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson I (paperback) by Robert A. Caro

The Years of Lyndon Johnson is the political biography of our time. No president—no era of American politics—has been so intensively and sharply examined at a time when so many prime witnesses to hitherto untold or misinterpreted facets of a life, a career, and a period of history could still be persuaded to speak.

The Path to Power, Book One, reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and urge to power that set LBJ apart. Chronicling the startling early emergence of Johnson’s political genius, it follows him from his Texas boyhood through the years of the Depression in the Texas hill Country to the triumph of his congressional debut in New Deal Washington, to his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate, and his attainment, nonetheless, of the national power for which he hungered.

For his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, ROBERT A. CARO has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, has three times won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and has also won virtually every other major literary honor, including the National Book Award, the Gold Medal in Biography from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Francis Parkman Prize, awarded by the Society of American Historians to the book that best “exemplifies the union of the historian and the artist.” In 2010 President Barack Obama awarded Caro the National Humanities Medal, stating at the time: “I think about Robert Caro and reading The Power Broker back when I was twenty-two years old and just being mesmerized, and I’m sure it helped to shape how I think about politics.” The London Sunday Times has said that Caro is “The greatest political biographer of our times.”

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 6 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/history-book-club-path-power

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 6^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

To participate in this meeting virtually, contact Nina Hull at 818-889-2278 or nhull@library.lacounty.gov

Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Each month, members will read the chosen poetry book and bring their favorite selections to share and discuss. Participation is free; just come with an open mind! Whether poetry is daunting or your passion, we’d love to have you!

Our selection for August is shima by shō yamagushiku.

About the book:

The village is tilting on its axis. It is turning. All its organs are spilling into the bay.

shima is a mosaic of the emotional, psychic, and generational toll that exile from a pillaged culture impresses on a poet and his community. Come to haunt yamagushiku’s practice of ancestor veneration are photographs and a narrative that spans his own life and a mythic parallel filled with a voice as spare as it is present, yearning as it is precise. The poet says, I am taking the sharpest stick and poking the root ancestor. I am insisting that if he awakens, I will have something useful to say.

Speaking through a cultural amnesia collected between a sunken past and a sensed, ghostly-dreamed future, shima anchors this interrogation of the relationship between father and son in the fragile connective tissue of memory where the poet’s homeland is an impossible destination.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Annalee Newitz, in conversation with Meghan McCarron, will present and discussAutomatic Noodle.

A cozy near-future novella about a crew of leftover robots opening their very own noodle shop, from acclaimed sci-fi author Annalee Newitz.

You don’t have to eat food to know the way to a city’s heart is through its stomach. So, when a group of deactivated robots come back online in an abandoned ghost kitchen, they decide to make their own way doing what they know: making food—the tastiest hand-pulled noodles around—for the humans of San Francisco, who are recovering from a devastating war.

But when their robot-run business starts causing a stir, a targeted wave of one-star reviews threatens to boil over into a crisis. To keep their doors open, they’ll have to call on their customers, their community, and each other—and find a way to survive and thrive in a world that wasn’t built for them.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

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 6^th

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

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

At least one hysterectomy is performed every minute of the year, making it the most common gynecological surgery worldwide. By the age of sixty-five, one out of five people born with a uterus will have it removed. So, why do we seldom talk about this surgery? Highly performed yet overlooked, examining the paradox of hysterectomy begins to unravel the various problems with how we medically treat uteruses and the people who have them.

Get It Out weaves centuries of medical history with rich qualitative data from 100 women, trans men, and nonbinary people who had, want, or are considering hysterectomy. In compelling detail, Andréa Becker reveals how America’s healthcare system routinely deprives people of the ability to control their own bodies along race and gender lines. When people ask for a hysterectomy, they are often met with pushback: Are you sick enough? Old enough? Have you had enough babies? Will you regret this? How will your future husband feel about this? Yet this pushback is not equally experienced. While some people are barred access, others are ushered toward a hysterectomy. These contradictory recommendations reveal the persistent biases entrenched within healthcare.

Get It Out interrogates how little choice people with uteruses ultimately have over their reproductive health and explores what these “choices” signify amid interlocking systems of inequality.

Andréa Becker is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Hunter College-CUNY. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, and Slate.

Daniel Spielberger’s writing has appeared in Esquire, Los Angeles Review of Books, Vogue, and other outlets. He is the executive editor of Study Hall and runs Daniel Docs, an immersive interview project. He interviews journalists as the host of the Study Hall Podcast.

Where: Skylight

Date: Wednesday, the 6^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-andr%C3%A9a-becker-presents-get-it-out-w-daniel-spielberger

Writing Workshop: How to Perform Poetry at Underdog Bookstore, Monrovia – 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.

Limited space so RSVP soon!

Where: Underdog Bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.underdogbookstore.org/events/writing-workshop-how-to-perform-poetry

Anansi Writers Workshop at The World Stage – In-Person Event

The Anansi Writer’s Workshop was founded 1990 @theworldstage.

Formal Workshop, Featured Writers, Open Mic

Every Wednesday 7:30-10:00 pm

4321 Degnan Blvd, Los Angeles, California 900

Doors open @7 pm

$10 Donation (No one will be turned away)

Parking & Entrance are in the back use 43rd St parking lot.

Date: Wednesday, the 6^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm

Join us for a night of storytelling, with the theme: 90 Second Stories!

Story Salon challenges you all to tell stories in 90 seconds! Can you, do it? If you can, join us Wednesday 7/30!

Tickets can be purchased early with the link in bio or at storysalon.com.

#storytelling #valleyvillage #storysalon #communitystories #LAthingstodo #northhollywood

Storytellers coming soon!

Where: Art Parlor

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

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

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

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

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

Jose Hernandaz Diaz is a 2017 NEA Fellow. He is the author of The Fire Eater (Texas Review Press, 2020) Bad Mexican, Bad American (Acre Books, 2024) The Parachutist (Sundress Publications, 2025) and Portrait of the Artist as a Brown Man (Red Hen Press, 2025). He has been published in Bennington Review, The Yale Review, The London Magazine, The Southern Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2011, and in The Best American Poetry 2025. He has taught creative writing at the University of California at Riverside. Currently, he is the Visiting Writer in Residence at the University of Tennessee.

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

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Wednesday, the 6^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Host Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry welcomes featured guest Anatalia Vallez.

Anatalia Vallez is a writer, actor and creative alchemist from Orange County with roots in Guerrero, Mexico. Her unique performance style has led her to reach stages in Louisiana, Texas, Arizona, New York, Tijuana Mexico, and all across California. In 2020 she published a poetry collection: The Most Spectacular Mistake through FlowerSong Press which was featured in the LA Times, LibroMobile and KPFK Radio’s Nuestra Voz.

She has also written several plays including Las Sirenas (LATC, 2022) and La Niña del Volcan (Wayward Artist, 2024). Currently Anatalia is working on her second poetry collection, hosting creative writing workshops, and curating the IG page Homies Who Submit by sharing opportunities with fellow creatives to get their work out in the world.

$5 cover fee, cash only.

Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange

Date: Wednesday, the 6^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

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

You Have a New Memory is a deeply human inventory of the digital sphere, a searing analysis of the present and a prescient assessment of the future. In her highly anticipated debut, Aiden Arata brings us raw reportage from the liminal space between online and offline worlds, illuminating how we got here and where to go next.

Aiden Arata is a writer and artist whose writing has appeared in publications including BOMB, NYLON, The Rumpus, The Fanzine, Hobart, and others, as well as NDA: An Autofiction Anthology (Archways Editions 2022). Arata’s visual and video work has been featured on platforms including Vice, The Cut, Harper’s Bazaar, Mashable, and The Washington Post. You Have a New Memory is her first essay collection. She lives in Los Angeles and on the internet as @aidenarata.

Featuring readings from:

Ru Anderson is the founder and CEO of Exceed Nutrition, an online nutrition coaching platform. He is also the author of High Performance Living and provides nutrition tools for passionate coaches. Anderson has a history of working with clients to achieve their health and body composition goals, including a period where he was overweight and unhealthy himself, according to his website about.me.

Allie Rowbottom is the author of the debut novel Aesthetica, named a best book of 2022 by NPR, Glamour and Vanity Fair, and the New York Times Editors’ Choice memoir Jell-O Girls. Her essays, reported pieces, and short fiction can be found in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Elle, The London Times, and elsewhere.

Maddie Connors is a comedian and writer based in LA who has written for The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W Magazine. She’s currently a writer for the Short Takes column at the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Britt Menjivar is a writer, filmmaker, and cultural critic. She was born and raised in the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia area) and now works and lives in Los Angeles. She is known for her short film “Fragile.com”, her debut short story and poetry collection Parasocialite, and her co-founding of the literary reading series Car Crash Collective. She is also a columnist for the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Moira O’Neill (UC Law SF ’06) joined the faculty in 2025. O’Neill is a public law scholar focused on climate resilience, equity, and democracy. O’Neill writes in the areas of environmental law, land-use law, housing policy, and state and local government law using interdisciplinary and empirical methods.

Where: Stories Books & Café

Date: Thursday the 7^th

Time: 9 am – 7 pm

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

Website: https://storiesla.com/events

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

Let Francesca help you with all aspects of your writing!

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

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/

Tuesdays & Thursdays @10AM | $15

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Thursday the 7^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Where: Hermosa Beach Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 7^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am

Address: 550 Pier Avenue, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254

All materials will be provided.

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

Where: Huntington Park Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 7^th

Time: 4 pm – 5 pm

Address: 7771 Foothill Blvd., Tujunga, CA 91042

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14030830

Inlandia Indie Author Book Market at Riverside Main Library – In-Person Event

This event is a twice-a-year opportunity for you to meet, mingle, and share your work with other writers and readers in our community. Are you an Indie Author? Join us! Are you a lover of books? Join us and support local authors!

Where: Riverside Main Library, Community Room

Date: Thursday the 7^th

Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: 3900 Mission Inn Ave., Riverside, CA

Beginning with the death of daddy, the “I” soon meshes with whatever and whomever she comes into contact with-strangers, actors, a Covid crush. She absorbs these people and objects, dispersing them into the Southern California landscape, the Uncanny Valley, warping time and naturalizing dreams.

Documenting a period of both global and personal loss, Roveto crafts a book-length poem that weighs heavier than the Ego in L.A. Splintering Self between Other and palm trees in the summer heat, Mulholland Dive spins a Lynchian setting within a feminine eruption of alluring language, fluked romance, and the aftershocks of grief.

Vanessa Roveto is the author of two books of poetry, bodys (University of Iowa Press, 2016) and a women (University of Iowa Press, 2020), and the novella The Valley (a void). She is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship. She lives in Los Angeles.

Anna Dorn is an author and editor living in Los Angeles. She was a Lambda Literary Fellow and her second novel Exalted was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize. Her next book American Spirits is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster.

Where: Chevalier’s

Date: Thursday the 7^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2025-08-07/book-talk-vanessa-roveto-discusses-and-signs-mulholland-drive-w-anna-dorn

Thom Mount and Gerald Petievich Present Books: Rafferty Returns and 13 Hillcrest Drive at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event

Jon Rafferty once reigned supreme over Hollywood’s spin machine. But after a spectacular fall from grace marked by scandal, divorce, and the collapse of his PR empire, he is restored to power and responsibility at Selwyn Bros.-Ince, one of the few giant studios, bearing the enigmatic title: Director of Special Projects.

His mandate? To handle the studio’s most sensitive challenges, volatile movie stars, powerful studio executives, relentless law enforcement, ambitious politicians, and a voracious press.

Thom Mount began his career in film at Roger Corman Productions, developing scripts for producers Daniel Selznick and Hannah Weinstein. He also worked as a journalist, contributing to publications such as The Village Voice and Interview Magazine. In 1973, he joined Universal Pictures, rising to head of production and becoming president by the age of twenty-six. During his tenure, films like The Deer Hunter, Animal House, Scarface, E.T., and The Breakfast Club were produced under his leadership.

Gerald Petievich’s 13 Hillcrest Drive is a gripping thriller that peels back the layers of Hollywood’s glitz to reveal the raw, unfiltered human drama underneath. In a city where image is everything, the truth can be the most dangerous revelation of all.

Detective Michael Casey, navigating the waters of Beverly Hills’ elite, is tasked with unraveling the mystery behind publicity agent Meredith Fox’s death. As he delves deeper, he uncovers a cold world where loyalty is fleeting, and trust is a rare commodity. With every clue leading to more questions, Casey must confront his own demons while piecing together a puzzle that threatens to expose the darkest secrets of Los Angeles.

Gerald Petievich belongs to that tiny group of writers who came to crime fiction from careers in law enforcement. He has been an Army counterspy and a U.S. Secret Service agent, using his real life experiences to achieve verisimilitude in his fiction. His novels are known to come as close as any in the mystery- and-thriller genre to a genuine realism. Three of his novels (To Live and Die in L.A., Money Men, The Sentinel) have been produced as major motion pictures.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore

Date: Thursday the 7^th

Time: 6:30 pm

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

Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-08-07/thom-mount-gerald-petievich-rafferty-returns-13-hillcrest-drive

Double Book Event: & Ellen Byron and Lee Hollis Present: Solid Gold Murder and My Father Always Finds Corpses, respectively at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Ellen Byron’s Solid Gold Murder is about a vacation gone wrong. Dee Stern’s Golden Motel-of-the-Mountains promises a tranquil getaway for outdoor lovers in the scenic Californian village of Foundgold. But when Dee accidentally triggers a modern gold rush, she suddenly turns her peaceful retreat into a hotspot for mayhem and murder…

Lee Hollis presents My Father Always Finds Corpses, a modern slant on the classic murder mystery as a father-daughter sleuthing duo are drawn into a case close to home…

You never forget your first corpse. For former child star Jarrod Jarvis, that discovery was twenty-plus years ago, and a lot has happened since he solved a string of real-life Hollywood murders. Now Jarrod lives in Palm Springs where he writes and directs local theatre, while quietly grieving the loss of his partner, police detective Charlie.

Jarrod hasn’t disclosed much about his sleuthing past to his daughter, Liv, who just earned a degree in criminal justice. There’s been distance between them since Charlie’s death, and Jarrod’s unsure how to bridge the gap. Liv, meanwhile, has put her career on hold in order to help her filmmaker boyfriend, Zel. His new documentary idea is to track down the surrogate who gave birth to Liv. Skeptical and annoyed by Zel’s pressure tactics, Liv goes to confront him at his apartment. But there’s no need to break things off—because someone has bludgeoned Zel to death.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Thursday the 7^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/ellen-byron-lee-hollis

Double Book Launch: Pablo Jofre and Translator Shook Present: Street by Street and Pigs in Delerium at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event

Join Chilean poet Pablo Jofré with Olga Garcia and translator Shook for three nights of poetry and translation:

Celebrating their ongoing collaboration, the tour spotlights Street by Street (Insert Press), a restless, queer, and border-crossing body of work that moves from Berlin to Bangkok to Santiago across five collections written between 2006 and 2020. Translated into English by Shook, Street by Street explores exile, desire, and alien status with humor, lyricism, and irreverence.

Also featured is Pigs in Delirium by Jorge Carlos Fonseca, a surreal and incisive collection recently brought into English for the first time by Shook.

Together, these readings offer a rare look at transnational poetic exchange—across languages, geographies, and lived experience.

Pablo Jofré is a Chilean poet and translator. His work includes Entre tanta calle (Amargord/Cuarto Propio) and Street by Street (Insert Press), translated into English by oa. He has translated writers such as Bernice Chauly, Nora Gomringer, and Elfriede Jelinek, and his own poetry has appeared in multiple languages and international festivals.

Shook is a poet, translator, and editor of Insert Press’ MANIFESTOH! imprint. Their most recent translations include Jorge Carlos Fonseca’s Pigs in Delirium (Insert Press), Jorge Lauten’s Bury My Heart on Mount Ramelau: Revolutionary Poems from Timor-Leste (Gato Negro Ediciones), and Mario Bellatin’s Mishima’s Head (Hanuman Editions). Their translation of Pablo Jofré’s Street by Street was published by Insert Press in 2023.

Presented by Insert Press with support from Instituto Cervantes Los Angeles and the Chilean Ministry of Culture, Arts, and Heritage.

Note: Please RSVP at site.

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Thursday the 7^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-b5dcb1c5-37d0-438a-a0a8-5e72ab17a4ef

Book Event: Julia Seales, with Kate Stayman-London, & A Terrible Nasty Business at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Julia Seales, in conversation with Kate Stayman-London, will present her new romance novel A Terrible Nasty Business.

There will be a book signing to follow.

RSVP required, Ticketed event.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Thursday the 7^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Thea’s third pregnancy was her easiest. She wasn’t consumed with anxiety about the baby. She wasn’t convinced it was going to be born green, or have a third eye, or have tentacles sprouting from its torso. Thea was fine. Her baby would be fine.

But when the nurses handed Lucia to her, Thea just knew. Her baby girl was a monster. Not only was Lucia born with a full set of teeth and a devilish glint in her eye, but she’s always hungry. Indiscriminately so. One day Lucia pointed at her baby brother, looked Thea dead in the eye and said, “I eat.”

Thea doesn’t know whether to be terrified or proud of her rapacious baby girl. And as Lucia starts growing faster and talking more, dark memories bubble to the surface—flashes from Thea’s childhood that won’t release their hooks from her heart. Lucia wants to eat the world. Thea might just let her.

Crackling with originality and dark humor, Rachel Eve Moulton’s Tantrum is a provocative exploration of familial debt, duty, and the darker side of motherhood.

Rachel Eve Moulton earned her B.A. from Antioch College and her M.F.A. from Emerson College. Her work has appeared in Chicago Quarterly Review, Cream City Review, Bryant Literary Review, Narrative Magazine, Southwest Review, New Ohio Review, Button Eye Review, and The Bangalore Review among other publications. Her debut novel—Tinfoil Butterfly—was long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and nominated for both a Shirley Jackson Award and a Bram Stoker. Her second novel, The Insatiable Volt Sisters, was named as one of the top ten horror novels of 2023 by the NYT Book Review. She’s spent most of her life as an educator, writer, and editor. She lives with her husband and two daughters in the mountains east of Albuquerque.

Kashana Cauley is the author of The Payback and The Survivalists, which was named a best book of 2023 by the BBC, Today, Vogue, and more. Cauley is also a television writer, having worked on The Great North, Pod Save America on HBO, and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Esquire, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and more. Find out more at KashanaCauley.com.

Where: Skylight

Date: Thursday, the 7^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

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 8^th

Time: 8:30 am – 9:30 am

Join the Venice Librarians and our staff for a bilingual Spanish storytime and craft program. This family-friendly activity takes place every second Friday of the month at the Venice Farmers Market. Each month children will delight in participating in a different fun themed storytime and craft program.

Crafts are generously sponsored by the Friends of Venice Library.

This is an open-air offsite event located at the Venice Farmers Market 499 S. Venice Blvd.

Where: Venice – Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Friday the 8^th

Time: 9:30 am – 11 am

Address: 601 S. Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/venice-farmers-market-bilingual-storytime-and-craft-program

FanWing Fest: Wings of Fire at Once Upon a Time, Montrose – In-Person Kids & Family Event

Explore the world of Wings of Fire!

Meet other fans and talk all about dragons!

ALL DAY ACTIVITIES!

10% off all Wings of Fire books and pre-orders for upcoming titles

Dragon scavenger hunt

Dragon crafts and activity pages

Dragon Celebrations!

At 4 pm:

Make a hybrid dragon.

Special video announcement from author Tui T. Sutherland. Tui will not be physically present.

NOTE: Free to attend.

Where: Once Upon a Time, Montrose

Date: Friday, the 8^th

Time: 10 am – 6 pm

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

¡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 8^th

Time: 11 am

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

August 8: The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt

Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Friday the 8^th

Time: 12 pm

Address: 13511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA, 91604

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

Writing Gets Lonely: Open Writing Studioat Heavy Manners Library – In-Person Event

Join us every other Friday in July and August, 1 pm – 3 pm.

No Frills, No prompts, Just write.

Drop in and stay a while.

Where: Heavy Manners Library

Date: Friday the 8^th

Time: 1 pm – 3 pm

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

Meet at least two very cool graphic novelists!

Author visit(s)

Snacks

Goodies from publishers

Where: pages, a bookstore

Date: Friday the 8^th

Time: 3 pm – 4 pm

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

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2025-08-08/summer-graphic-novel-creators-club

Self-Care Book Club: Flex Your Feelings at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Flex Your Feelings: Trian Your Brain to Develop the 7 Traits of Emotional Fitness by Dr. Emily Anhalt.

This is Atomic Habits for your mental health—a data-driven, practical, step-by-step plan for developing the 7 essential traits of emotional strength necessary to face all of life’s challenges and become the best leader, entrepreneur, and human you can be.

Dr. Emily Anhalt is a clinical psychologist and co-founder of the mental health startup Coa—the “gym” for mental health. She’s consulted for American Express, the NBA, Google, Spotify, and Salesforce, among other companies. She currently splits her time between San Francisco, CA and New York City.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Friday the 8^th

Time: 6 pm

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

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 8^th

Time: 6 pm (Doors at 5:30 pm)

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Elaine U. Cho, with Emily Doyle, & Teo’s Durumi (Alliance #2) at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Elaine U. Cho, in conversation with Emilie Doyle, will discussTeo’s Durumi (Alliance #2).

The dazzling sequel to Ocean’s Godori dives back into Elaine U. Cho’s cinematic space opera series, taking Ocean and her crew deep into the cloisters of the Moon and the conflicts of the heart.

Teo Anand, former ne’er-do-well second son of the Anand Tech empire and current solar fugitive, has just crash-landed on the Moon after escaping the latest attempt on his life. But if anyone can help exonerate him, it’s his best friend, bold Korean space pilot Ocean Yoon.

Falsely accused of murdering his family, Teo is running out of both time and options. But loyalties are uncertain in their group of steadfast comrades and tentative new allies, and it’s difficult to know who to trust in the tangled web that awaits them in Artemis, a city on the Moon rich in Korean history and haunted by ghosts from Teo’s and Ocean’s pasts. Further complicating matters are Haven—the pensive medic whose beliefs challenge Ocean’s—and the dashing Phoenix—a space raider who’s come blazing into Teo’s life in more ways than one.

All the while Corvus, the real culprit behind the slaying of the Anands, is sowing a path of destruction that threatens to swallow the solar whole. The crew will wrestle with clashing ideals, flying bullets, and undeniable feelings, as they race toward a stunning final stand.

Teo’s Durumi brings Cho’s space opera duology to an exhilarating close, one that contends with questions of identity and acceptance; grief and redemption; and loyalty and sacrifice, as Teo, Ocean, and the people they love will decide once and for all how to forge their paths into the future.

Date: Friday the 8^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Giovanni Boskovich (b. 1985) is a poet and educator born and raised in San Pedro, California. He holds an MA in Literature from California State University Dominguez Hills where he published a thesis on Emily Dickinson. His work has appeared in California Quarterly, Arteidolia Press, the Santa Barbara Literary Journal, Big Windows Review, and POETiCA REVIEW. His first full-length poetry collection, The Tautology of Water, is forthcoming in May 2025 via Moon Tide Press. In his free time, he surfs anywhere from Cabrillo Beach to Topanga.

Featuring readings from:

Adam Stutz is a neurodivergent poet whose work has appeared in various print and online publications including The Equalizer: Second Series, White Stag, The Cultural Society, A Sharp Piece of Awesome, Prelude, Be About It, Deluge, Dum Dum Zine, The Pinch, Where is the River, Dream Pop, Cover, and Ghost Proposal.

Alex Moreno is a writer and visual artist based in Los Angeles. Her work explores emotional processes through surrealism, visceral interiority, and synesthetic play. Sticky Time, her debut poetry book, is forthcoming with Sunflower Station Press in November 2025.

Max Whiteford N/A

Where: Stories Books & Café

Date: Friday the 8^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://storiesla.com/events

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

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

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

Limited space so RSVP soon!

Where: Underdog Bookstore

Date: Friday the 8^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.underdogbookstore.org/events/full-moon-writing-meditation-2-drgnz-9n2yg-l7rel-dgxhk

Open Mic Night at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

This all-inclusive event will create space for local artists of any medium to share their talents with the community. Come hang out, as an audience member, or a performer, and meet some talented locals!

Sign-ups for performers are at the door, day of, 30 minutes prior to the event. Sets are limited to 5-10 minutes. All performances must be family friendly. We will provide two microphones and two mic stands. Please bring any other equipment you will need. This event is free; no registration is required!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Friday the 8^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Strange Trip and the publicist of the Grateful Dead, Dennis McNally presents a riveting social history of everything that led up to the 1960s counterculture movement.

Few cities represent the countercultural movement of the 1960s more than San Francisco. By that decade, the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood was home to self-branded “freaks” (dubbed “hippies” by the media) who created the world’s first psychedelic neighborhood—an alchemical chamber for social transformation. They rejected a large part of the traditional American identity, passing over American exceptionalism, consumerism, misogyny, and militarism in favor of creativity, mind-body connection, peace, and love of all things.

The Last Great Dream is a history of everything that led to the 1960s counterculture, when long-simmering resistance to American mainstream values birthed the hippie. It begins with the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance, peaks with the Human Be-in in Golden Gate Park and ends with the Monterey Pop Festival that introduced Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin to the world. It tells of several micro-histories, including beat poetry, visual arts, underground publishing, electronic/contemporary compositional music, experimental theater, psychedelics, and more.

Fascinating and definitive, The Last Great Dream is the ultimate guide to a generation-defining countercultural movement—an Underground 101 course for newcomers and aficionados alike.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Friday the 8^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-08-08/dennis-mcnally

Bookstore Romance Day at Chevalier’s Bookstore – In-Person Event

This Bookstore Romance Day, find your platonic soulmate at this one-of-a-kind Friend Speed-Dating event!

For the first time ever, Chevalier’s brings you a one-stop shopping experience for all things romance. We invite you to join us for early morning discounted shopping as you mix & mingle while you connect with other like-minded readers and sip on your drink of choice.

To help us find your perfect friend match, please click on the register link which will take you to our Google Form questionnaire. Registration is required for this event, so we strongly recommend doing so ahead of the event.

The event is 21+ ticketed.

$15 Ticket includes one drink (alcoholic or non-alcoholic), games, and early morning discounted shopping throughout the store.

Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 9 am – 11 am

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

Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2025-08-09/bookstore-romance-day

Get Lit Free Poetry Club: Every Saturday, July through September 27^th – In-Person Teen Event

Get Lit Poetry Club is offered every Saturday through September 27^th, for teens ages 13 – 19.

Link in bio! Every Saturday starting July 19 from 10 am – 1 pm, teens are invited to a free poetry club at the Get Lit office in Los Angeles. This weekly space offers hands-on training in the craft of poetry, performance, and editing.

Writers will receive one-on-one support to help polish their work, connect with a diverse and passionate community, and explore real-world opportunities to share their voice.

No experience needed, just a willingness to show up and speak your truth.

Where: Get Lit Office 

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 10 am – 1 pm

Address: 672 S. La Fayette Park Pl, #10 Los Angeles, CA 90057

We’ll see you there!

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 10 am – 6 pm

Join author Anne Soon Choi in her discussion of L.A. Coroner, the first-ever biography of Dr. Thomas Noguchi, the Chief Medical Examiner–Coroner of Los Angeles County, who performed the autopsies of Marilyn Monroe, Robert F. Kennedy, Natalie Wood, and hundreds of other notable personalities.

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

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

RSVP:

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

Where: Little Tokyo Branch Library, LAPL 

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 10 am – 12:30 pm

Address: 203 S; Los Angeles St., Los Angeles, CA 90012

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

Please be aware that refreshments will be served at this program. A list of ingredients will be available.

Where: Hacienda Heights Library, LACL 

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13050058

Where the Wild Books Are Children’s Book Club at Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Kids Event

Join our fun Summer book club featuring different books with important themes for ages 6 and 7. Local Girl Scout Lilah Schulte, a rising Junior in high school, will lead this book club as part of her Gold Award project. Lilah hopes to encourage children to read and experience all the important lessons that children’s literature has to offer. Each meeting will include a book reading and a fun activity!

RSVP:

Please RSVP for which dates your child would like to attend at the Google form at website.

Where: Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL 

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am

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

Participants will discuss The Friend by Sigrid Nunez.

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL 

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

A Great Country explores the ties and fractures of a close-knit Indian American family in the aftermath of a violent encounter with the police. It has themes of immigration, generational conflict, social class and privilege as it reconsiders the myth of the model minority and questions the price of the American dream. – Goodreads

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

Where: Sorenson Library, LACL 

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: 6934 Broadway Ave., Whittier, CA 90606

Max and the Imaginary Tree teaches mindfulness breathing for children, with specific references on how to calm down at bedtime. Join us for a reading and come ready to color!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

From the creator of Hidden Gem and Sour Apple comes a new out-of-this-world picture book about a star who loses their shine from the pressures of over-achieving.

Being the star that people wish on is demanding work! And when the burden of performing becomes too much to bear, even celestial bodies take a hit.

As a star falls from their sky-high position, their self-esteem takes a real nosedive. But a lift from an unlikely source gives this star a new purpose, along with the courage to glow again.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-08-09/linda-liu

Romance Day Event: Author Bianca Schwartz & The Gentleman Spy Series at Flintridge Bookstore – In-Person Event

Join us to welcome author Bianca Schwartz, the author of THE GENTLEMAN SPY SERIES: The Innkeeper’s Daughter, The Gentleman’s Daughter, The Memory of Her and The Spy’s Daughter. She was born in Germany, spent her formative years in London, and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and teenage son. Ms. Schwarz has been telling stories all her life and holds a degree in English literature but didn’t hit her stride until she started writing books she would want to read for fun.

Schwarz just signed a three-book deal for her next series: INCONVENIENT HEIRS. The first book in that series will come out in summer ‘26 and is called The Missing Baroness.

ALSO, HERE FOR BOOKSTORE ROMANCE DAY from 11 am – 3 pm: A pop-up event with The Cozy Cookie Co.

Where: Flintridge Bookstore 

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 12 pm – 3 pm

Address: 858 Foothill Boulevard, La Cañada Flintridge, CA, 91011

Website: https://www.flintridgebooks.com/instore-events/2025/8/9/meet-amp-greet-bianca-schwarz-author-of-the-gentleman-spy-series

Book Discussion: Queer at Will & Ariel Durant BranchLibrary, LAPL – In-Person Event

Read the book and join our lively discussion!

Participants will discuss Queer by William S. Burroughs.

Originally written in 1952 but not published till 1985, Queer is a haunting tale of possession and exorcism. Both an unflinching autobiographical self-portrait and a coruscatingly political novel, it is both Burroughs’s only realist love story and a montage of comic-grotesque fantasies that paved the way for his masterpiece, Naked Lunch.

Set in Mexico City during the early fifties, Queer follows William Lee, the protagonist of Burroughs’s debut novel Junky, a man afflicted with acute heroin withdrawal and romantic yearnings for Eugene Allerton. As Lee breaks down over the course of his hopeless pursuit of desire from bar to bar in the American expatriate scene, the trademark Burroughsian voice emerges, a maniacal mix of self-lacerating humor and the ugly American at his ugliest.

Where: Will & Ariel Durant Branch Library, LAPL 

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 2 pm

Address: 7140 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-discussion-queer-willam-s-burroughs

Bookstore Romance Day at pages, a bookstore – In-Person Event

 Calling all romance book lovers. {pages} a bookstore is partnering with Boutique Book Retreats on a special event on Saturday, August 9 from 2:00 – 4:00 in the {pages} courtyard.

Tickets are $10 each and include entry into our romance book trivia contest – with prizes. You can participate as an individual or team up with up to two other people, as long as you each have an event ticket. We’ll also have supplies for a book cover bedazzling craft.

You’ll receive a coupon for $5 to put toward a purchase at the store that day.

Space is limited so be sure to get your tickets now.

If the event is sold out, please contact us via phone or email to join our waitlist in the event that space becomes available.

Where: pages, a bookstore 

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 2 pm

Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90266

SOLD OUT – Ticketed – Bookstore Romance Day Book Bedazzling!

Book Bedazzling is currently sold out. As we get closer to the event, people who are unable to make it will request a refund. Once refunded, their ticket becomes available for purchase on the Eventbrite page.

Add a little sparkle to your bookshelf and join us for a Book Bedazzling afternoon! Join your fellow bookish crafters as we add jewels to our favorite books. We will also have a fun romantasy themed photo backdrop for Bookstore Romance Day!

Event Details:

We will provide the bedazzling supplies.

Bring your own book from home or purchase one before the event.

We will also have bookmarks to bedazzle!

If you do not complete your project by the time the event is over, you can take home your supplies.

This event is open to all crafting levels. Recommended age is 16+

This is an in-store ticketed event. The ticket includes general admission to the event and 1 bedazzling kit.

Questions? Email promo@vromansbookstore.com

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 2 pm – 4 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-08-09/sold-out-ticketed-bookstore-romance-day-book-bedazzling

Everything Book Club: Before the Coffee Gets Cold at Lancaster Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss ‘Before the Coffee Gets Cold’ by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. For adults.

In the Everything Book Club we read a variety of genres; we wish to expand our horizons and try to include many perspectives.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, a cozy cafe in a back alley in Tokyo offers a select few the chance to travel back in time. But there are rules to be followed. This quirky novel examines the tales of four customers, and how they choose to change their past.

Time: 3 pm – 4 pm

Address: 601 W. Lancaster Blvd., Lancaster, CA 93534

Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.

Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry Online

Date: Saturday, the 9^th

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event

Jayci Lee will discuss her book, Give Me A Reason.

Falon Ballard will discuss her book, Change of Heart.

Sabrina Sol will discuss her book, The Cowboy Whisperer.

Jayci Lee writes poignant, sexy, and laugh-out-loud romance featuring Korean American main characters. Her books have been in O, The Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Entertainment Weekly, Hollywood Reporter, E! News, and Women’s World. Jayci is retired from her fifteen-year career as a litigator because of all the badass heroines and drool worthy heroes demanding to have their stories told. Food, wine, and travel are her jam. She makes her home in sunny California with her tall-dark-and-handsome husband, two amazing boys, and a fluffy rescue.

Falon Ballard is the USA Today bestselling author of several rom-coms and the cohost of the Happy to Meet Cute podcast. When she’s not writing a romance book, reading a romance book, or talking about romance books, you can probably find her at Disneyland. Ballard lives in the Los Angeles area.

She writes contemporary romance novels featuring strong Latina heroines in search of their Happily Ever Afters. Sabrina and her stories have been featured in New York Times Books, NBC Latino and on Book Riot’s list of “100 Must Read Romantic Comedies.” Sabrina also writes women’s fiction under the pen name Annette Chavez Macias. To learn more, visit http://www.sabrinasol.com or follow Sabrina on Instagram under @sabrina_theromancechica.

Where: Bel Canto KUBO, Long Beach

Date: Saturday, the 9^th

Time: 4 pm – 6 pm

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

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celebrating-bookstore-romance-day-tickets-1461806545729?aff=oddtdtcreator

Second Saturday Stroll at The Book Jewel – In-Person Event

Celebrate art, music, shopping and dining at our 2^nd annual Saturday Stroll event in the Westchester Triangle area.

End your evening with a special community event at The Book Jewel- LPS poetry night. #thebookjewel #lps #poetryevent.

Where: The Book Jewel

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 4 pm – 8 pm

Join us for the launch of Philozineia Issue 01: Interrobang!

Come to North Figueroa Bookshop for a night of zines, live performances, baked goods, short film screenings, and community joy. Featuring work by teen creatives and musicians in support of Plan International NGO. All are welcome!

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 6 pm – 9 pm

Address: 6040 . Los Angeles, CA 9

Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-090c1a99-7006-43d3-a207-f9f861e3a871

Posthumous Fantasy Book Launch: Bell Street Burning at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Join us for a special reading of Zachary James Ritter’s posthumously published novel Bell Street Burning.

Zachary was a frequent Village Well customer whose in-progress novel has been published by his surviving friends and family. This celebration will touch on Zachary’s service-filled life, and the antiauthoritarian themes found in his novel.

About the author:

Zachary James Ritter (1989-2024) was born in Los Angeles. He majored in history at U.C. Berkeley and worked as a research attorney at the Santa Monica Courthouse. He is survived by his mother Susan Holman Ritter and his girlfriend Caroline James.

About the book:

A fantasy epic about a tightly knit theatre company defiantly surviving in a world that seeks to crush them.

The Bell Street Players are one of the many theatre troupes in the city of Ralmerre, a beacon of arts, culture and commerce recently absorbed into a theocratic empire. The company’s impresario Olvar just wants to pile up enough money to keep out of trouble for good. His playwright Merrin, however, is an outspoken political dissident and a growing threat to the city’s spellcasting gentry.

When a state-sanctioned killer seizes control of a local crime syndicate, the Players’ long-neglected debts are called in. This means Olvar must make good on his promise of a box-office smash or pay in blood. Catastrophically, however, Merrin has disappeared, her latest play unfinished. Now, the troupe must plunge into Ralmerre’s deadly political labyrinth in search of their writer.

As Olvar and his Players plumb the city’s depths, they face harrowing choices that pit self-interest against idealism and personal loyalties against Ralmerre’s desperate need for change. They encounter forbidden magics, corrupt constables, exiled heretics, anguished spirits, peerless divas, philosophizing pirates, and countless other wonders, all while uncovering the city’s secrets, facing down its cruel rulers, and confronting their convictions about how the world really works.

What, they come to wonder, are the duties of everyday people in an unjust society? What do they owe to history and to one another?

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

Celebrate Bookstore Romance Day with Romantasy Trivia at Vroman’s Bookstore! We will have light refreshments, drawings throughout the event, a special romantasy themed photo backdrop, and each attendee will receive an exclusive *(V)romantasy bookmark.

This will be individual trivia with the 1st place winner receiving a $25 Vroman’s gift card and a special goody bag. We will have prizes for the runners up too! The topic will be romance/fantasy books and movies.

Please arrive on time as we will begin promptly at 6 pm. Check in starts at 5:00 pm. Please note, Romantasy trivia will be done electronically, to participate you will need a phone/electronic device with internet access.

This is an in-store ticketed event. The ticket includes general admission to the event.

Questions? Email promo@vromansbookstore.com

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

All attendees will receive a small gift, plus prizes for participants.

Where: The Book Jewel

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 7 pm (Sign-ups at 6:30 pm)

Ceasar K. Avelar hosts Obsidian Tongues Poetry & Open Mic every 2^nd Saturday of the month. Featuring:

Dr. Alondra aka Bird is a poet and scientist making waves in the IE with her poems. A previous Pomona Resident, she/they graduated from Western U’s college of Veterinary Medicine back in 2022, and has made a temporary home in Riverside. You can catch two of her poems in volumes 1&2 of the Anthology featuring local poets. And finally, you can read her collection of 100+ poems in the book Doctora de Amor Madura y Rebelde published by Daxson Publishing.

Where: Café con Libros Press

Date: Saturday the 9^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm

Come and support the Griot Cafe Open Mic & Poetry at “Shades of Afrika LB” at 1001 E 4th St. Long Beach CA 90802. Hosted by Tommy Domino.

Feature

Mike Guinn is an internationally renowned Spoken Word artist, published poet, actor and fun, professional, high energy emcee for audiences of all ages.

He has 25+ years experience as the director of Mike Guinn Entertainment and founder/CEO of Uplift Your Life, a 501c3 which addresses mental health and wellness globally via performance arts. As an award winning poet/storyteller/actor and mental health advocate, he continues to build safe and supportive platforms for all artists and audiences everywhere.

$5.00 Cash ONLY & bring a friend!

Where: Shades of Afrika

Date: Saturday, the 9^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)

Address: 1001 E. 4^th St., Long Beach, CA 90802

Website: https://shadesofafrika.com/griot-cafe-open-mic-poetry/

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 10^th

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

Sunday Story Time at Chevalier’s Bookstore – In-Person Event

We are pleased to bring you the official return of Storytime.

Every Sunday at 11am, bring your little one to enjoy some reading from your local booksellers, special guests, or local volunteers!

Contact us if you would like to be a volunteer reader, and we will see you at the bookstore!

As always, our storytime events are always free to attend, but we strongly recommend you RSVP so that we can accommodate all who wish to attend.

Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore

Date: Sunday the 10^th

Time: 11 am – 12:30 pm

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

Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2025-08-10/sunday-storytime

Paiges’ Storytime at The Book Jewel – In-Person Kids Event

Paiges the bookstore cat invites children to our picture book storytime with Thera Pitts. Every Sunday at 11:30am.

Participants will read and discuss Dog Man: Big Jim Begins: A Graphic Novel (Dog Man #13) by Dav Pilkey.

In this book, discover the origin of our beloved characters from the Dog Man series as they join forces to stop the Space Cuties from destroying the city. Will the past predict the future for Dog Man and his friends? Will goodness and bravery prevail?

Where: The Book Jewel

Date: Sunday the 10^th

Time: 11:30 am

Lene Amalfi will present her book, The Girl Who Could Talk to Cats.

Where: The Book Jewel

Date: Sunday the 10^th

Time: 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

Address: 6259 W. 87^th St., Westchester, CA 90045

Paletero Man meets Besos for Baby in this Spanish-English counting picture book that’s bursting with all the love, laughter, and chaos found at a large family gathering.

Sundays are the best: that’s when a little girl and her mamá, abuelitos, tías and primos all gather together to eat yummy menudo, a traditional Mexican soup. But when playtime with the cousins and family dogs gets out of hand and Abuelito Esteban’s special bowl of menudo breaks, everyone has to pitch in to make a new batch! Through all the menudo mishaps and sneaky snacks for perritos with wagging tails, young readers will giggle as they learn to count from 1-15 in Spanish and English. Bonus materials at the back of the book include a glossary of Spanish words, a note from the author, and tips for hosting your very own Menudo Sunday!

Author and Illustrator Bios:

María Dolores Águila is a Chicana poet and writer from San Diego, California. Deeply inspired by Chicane history and art, she seeks to write empowering and inclusive stories about everything she learns. She is also the author of the historical fiction picture book Barrio Rising: The Protest That Built Chicano Park.

Erika Meza was born in Mexico, fell in love with animation on the border of California, and developed a taste for eclairs in Paris before moving to the UK to teach at Nottingham Trent University. She is the illustrator of numerous children’s books including My Two Border Towns by David Bowles and Salsa Lullaby by Jen Arena.

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Sunday the 10^th

Time: 12 pm

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

Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-513fe744-314d-477a-b37c-c18e46921bb8

Ellen McPhinney & A Dog and His Boy: The Switch at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event

Ellen McPhinney will present her children’s book, A Dog and His Boy: The Switch.

Meet Scout, a golden retriever puppy who is scouting for his new family.

Meet Jax, an eleven-year-old boy who misses his best friend.

One day a mishap occurs, and Scout and Jax accidentally switch places. What does a dog do in a boy’s body? How does a boy face life as a dog? Scout and Jax must navigate life at home and school and figure out how to switch back. The two become inseparable, trying one failed attempt after another. When Jax’s parents send him to the animal shelter, his life is at stake. With so much to lose after being separated, Jax and Scout’s bond of friendship and family is tested. Will Jax be able to get through to his parents, and will Scout be able to rescue Jax before it’s too late?

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Sunday the 10^th

Time: 1 pm – 2 pm

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

A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a mystery that will haunt the survivors, unravel a family, and remain unsolved for nearly fifty years.

July 1962. Following in the tradition of Indigenous workers from Nova Scotia, a Mi’kmaq family arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

“An unforgettable exploration of grief, love, and kin,” (The Boston Globe), this show stopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.

Amanda Peters is a writer of Mi’kmaq and settler ancestry. Her debut novel, The Berry Pickers, was the winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and the 2023 Barnes & Noble Discover Prize and was a finalist for the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Amazon First Novel Award.Peters is a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and has a certificate in creative writing from the University of Toronto. She lives and writes in the Annapolis Valley Nova Scotia where she is an Associate Professor in English and Theatre at Acadia University.

Date: Sunday the 10^th

Time: 2 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/cellar-door-book-club-berry-pickers

Zine Hang Out with Chiquita at Café con Libros Press, Pomona – In-Person Event

Create something new in this collaborative hangout with Queen of the Zine Chiquita.

Where: Café con Libros Press, Pomona

Date: Sunday the 10^th

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm

Celebrate the launch of Salt Bones: A Novel by Jennifer Givhan.

Three women in one twisted family race for answers in this “stunning” mystery set in the Mexicali borderlands that “breathes new life into the myth of Persephone and Demeter” (Ana Reyes, author of The House in the Pines).

At the edge of the Salton Sea, in the blistering borderlands, something is out hunting…

Malamar Veracruz has never left the dust-choked town of El Valle. Here, Mal has done her best to build a good life: She’s raised two children, worked hard, and tried to forget the painful, unexplained disappearance of her sister, Elena. When another local girl goes missing, Mal plunges into a fresh yet familiar nightmare. As a desperate Mal hunts for answers, her search becomes increasingly tangled with inscrutable visions of a horse-headed woman, a local legend who Mal feels compelled to follow. Mal’s perspective is joined by the voices of her two daughters, all three of whom must work to uncover the truth about the missing girls in their community before it’s too late.

Combining elements of Latina and Indigenous culture, family drama, mystery, horror, and magical realism in a spellbinding mix, Salt Bones lays bare the realities of environmental catastrophe, family secrets, and the unrelenting bond between mothers and daughters.

Jennifer Givhan is a Mexican American and Indigenous poet and novelist from the Southwestern desert and the recipient of poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices. She holds a Master’s degree from California State University Fullerton and a master’s in Fine Arts from Warren Wilson College. Givhan is the author of five full-length poetry collections and the novel River Woman, River Demon.

Where: Bel Canto Books, KUBO LB

Date: Sunday the 10^th

Time: 4 pm – 6 pm

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

Mansi Shah will present and discuss Saving Face.

In Saving Face Ami Shah is on the brink of life-changing success. Her skin-care empire, Amala, is set for a dream acquisition by a Fortune 500 company, and she has just been nominated for the Global Changemakers Award, the most revered entrepreneurial honor. There’s just one problem: fraud.

Twenty years ago, abandoned orphan Monica Joseph made a decision to steal her wealthy classmate’s identity and move halfway around the world to build her life on someone else’s name. For twenty years, she’s managed to hide in plain sight…until an ambitious fledgling journalist sets out to write the inaugural full-length profile on her. With her carefully constructed persona and life’s work now in jeopardy, Monica is left with no other choice: she must return to the scene of the crime—and the one place she vowed never to revisit.

Mansi Shah writes novels centering Gujarati characters that speak to generational differences across the Indian diaspora, and she’s the author of the acclaimed novels The Direction of the Wind, The Taste of Ginger, A Good Indian Girl, and Saving Face. Shah was born in Toronto to Indian immigrants, raised in the midwestern United States, and is now based in Los Angeles, She left her long-time career as an entertainment attorney in Hollywood to travel the world and write full time. She loves to cook and is often experimenting on new culinary creations that blend Indian flavors with other cuisines.

Lyn Liao will present and discuss The Fourth Daughter.

In Taiwan, the bond between grandmother and granddaughter opens up a healing world for them both in an inspiring family saga about the comfort of food, untold histories, and indomitable mother love.

Chef Liv Kuo’s star is on the rise…until a traumatic incident leaves her emotionally unable to venture outside her Manhattan apartment. But an unexpected reason to break free comes from Ah-Ma, Liv’s beloved grandmother in Taiwan. Ah-Ma needs Liv’s help in finding her fourth daughter, taken from her when the girl was an infant. After all these years, it seems impossible. It’s also a mystery: Ah-Ma’s fourth daughter is an aunt Liv never even knew existed.

After landing in Taiwan, Liv hears the heartbreaking story of her grandmother’s plight in a country once under martial law, of choices made for her, and of the hopeful search for a lost girl that has endured for more than sixty years. Like the enriching food and traditions that bind Liv and Ah-Ma, their journey for answers brings them together.

And it’s a quest that turns up both a precious old cookbook and a tale of fatal betrayal that shakes everything Liv believed about her family—revelations that could also give her the courage to face the trauma she left behind.

Lyn Liao Butler is a Taiwanese American author of thrillers, upmarket fiction, and rom-coms. Her thriller, Someone Else’s Life, was an Amazon bestseller and her second book Red Thread of Fate was a finalist in the WFWA Star Awards for 2023. Before becoming an author, she was a professional ballet and modern dancer and is still a fitness and yoga instructor. She and her family, including two rescue dogs and a myriad of foster animals, divide their time between New York and Kauai.

You may purchase either book for one seat.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore

Date: Sunday the 10^th

Time: 4 pm

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

Karen Greenbaum-Maya is a retired clinical psychologist, former German major, two-time Pushcart and best of the Net nominee, and, occasional photographer. Her first full sentence was, “Look at the moon!” Her photos and poems appear in anthologies and in journals such as B O D Y, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Off the Coast, Blue Lyra, Measure, Otoliths, and, Naugatuck Review. Her poems have received Special Merit and Honorable Mention in Comstock Review’s Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial poetry contest.

She co-hosts Fourth Sundays, a poetry series in Claremont, California. Kattywompus Press publishes her three chapbooks: Burrowing Song, a collection of prose poems; Eggs Satori; and Kafka’s Cat. Kelsay Books publishes her full-length collection, The Book of Knots and their Untying. For links to work on-line, go to: http://www.cloudslikemountains.blogspot.com/. Her newest book is Eve the Inventor.

Where: The Studio Theatre at St. Denis Building

Date: Sunday the 10^th

Time: 5 pm

Address: 3433 Cahuenga Blvd West, Los Angeles 90068

(Near Universal Studios) 

Website: https://www.secondsundaypoetry.com/

Library Girl Reading Series: Moon Tide Press Writers at The Ruskin Theater – In-Person Event

The one and only Library Girl is hosting Moon Tide Press authors. Hosted by Susan Hayden.

Featuring

Giovanni Boskovich is a poet and educator born and raised in San Pedro, California. He holds an MA in Literature from California State University Dominguez Hills where he published a thesis on Emily Dickinson. His work has appeared in California Quarterly, Arteidolia Press, the Santa Barbara Literary Journal, POETiCA REVIEW and more. His first full-kength poetry collection, The Tautology of Water, is now available from Moon Tide Press. In his free time he surfs anywhere from Cabrillo Beach to Topanga.

L.A. poet and spoken-word performer Rich Ferguson has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, Moby, and other esteemed poets and musicians. He is a featured performer in the film, What About Me? featuring Michael Stipe, Michael Franti, k.d. lang, and others. His poetry and award-winning spoken-word music videos have appeared in numerous anthologies and festivals. He is the author of two poetry collections 8th & Agony (Punk Hostage Press), and Everything is Radiant Between the Hates (Moon Tide Press) and the novel New Jersey Me (Rare Bird Books).

Kathleen Florence is a poet and artist whose work spans screen, stage, and page. She is author of the award-winning play Who Killed the Curator and co-director of Poet Film Stage. Her work has been published in multiple journals and anthologies, including L.A.’s Cultural Daily, Paris Lit Up, NYC’s Arteidolia and Maintenant issues 10 – 19 (Three Rooms Press). Her writing has been supported by Ontario and Canada Arts Council grants and the Valparaiso artist residency in Spain. Kathleen has performed at NYC’s Poets House, L.A.’s Beyond Baroque, and Ottawa’s Versefest, and her short films have screened at festivals in Los Angeles and Quebec City. Prayers With a Side of Cash is her debut poetry collection. She lives in Los Angeles.

Sarah Rose McMahon is a poet, blogger, and ultra runner based out of Laguna Beach, CA. She is the author of the poetry collection Dirt Girls.

Eric Morago is a poet and the publisher of Moon Tide Press. He’s a transplant from Los Angeles, CA, now living in Carson City, NV. He’s bad at taking photos.

Special music guest Sandy Rogers!

Tickets are $20 and are available now at ruskingrouptheater.com

Where: The Ruskin Theater

Date: Sunday the 10^th

Time: 7 pm

Fantasy Romance Book Club meets on the 2^nd Sunday of the month, and participants read about and like vampires, ghosts, and paranormal romance. Everyone is welcome.

This month’s selection is Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett.

Hosted General Manager Taylor.

RSVP required.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Sunday the 10^th

Time: 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm

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

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

Poetry Suite Open Mic at Thee V Suite, Pasadena – In-Person Event

UNDER 18 WITH PARENT OR LEGAL GUARDIAN

Come join us at Poetry Suite Open Mic for a night of sharing and celebrating spoken word, poetry, and creativity with a supportive community.

Whether you’re a seasoned poet or just starting out, this event is the perfect opportunity to share your work in a supportive and welcoming environment With delicious vegan food for purchase.

Bring your empty tummies, poems, stories, or spoken word pieces and take the stage to showcase your talent. Don’t be shy – we love hearing new voices and perspectives!

So, mark your calendars and get ready for a memorable evening filled with poetry, passion, and community & SOONMUCH FUN! We can’t wait to share space with you.

By: Star Logan

Time: 7:30 pm – 11 pm

Address: 463 North Lake Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/poetry-suite-open-mic-tickets-1545630926709

PoetTik LA Poetry Collective is Silverlake – In-Person Event

This poetry collective meets monthly on every 2^nd Sunday of the month at 2930 Hyperion.

Where: PoeTik LA

Date: Sunday the 10^th

Time: 8 pm – 11 pm

Address: 2930 Hyperion, Silverlake, CA 90027