When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! They’re all—or mostly all—excited to meet her! She’ll have to speak. To. Strangers. It’s a disaster! And as if that wasn’t enough, Tom, her trivia nemesis, has turned out to be cute, funny, and deeply interested in getting to know her. Doesn’t he realize what a terrible idea that is?

It’s time for Nina to come out of her comfortable shell, but she isn’t convinced real life could ever live up to fiction. It’s going to take a brand-new family, a persistent suitor, and the combined effects of ice cream and trivia to make her turn her own fresh page.

Where: Fairfax Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 20^th

Time: 11 am

Address: 161 S, Gardner St., Los Angeles, CA 90036 

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-bookish-life-nina-hill

Robertson Writers Group at Robertson Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Hybrid Event

Writing a book, poem, or screenplay? Need deadlines? Want constructive feedback? Bring 5-10 double-spaced typed pages to read. Everyone will get a chance to read!

RSVP:

This group mostly meets in person, but email rbrtsn@lapl.org if you’d prefer to join via Zoom.

Where: Robertson Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 20^th

Time: 11 am

Address: 1719 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035 

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/robertson-writers-group-2

Book Club: All the Sinners Read at Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL at Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event

Join us for a lively book discussion. We meet online via Google Meet.

October: All the Sinners Read by S.A. Cosby

RSVP:

Please email ebarrera@lapl.org.org for the link.

Where: Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 20^th

Time: 4:45 pm – 5:30 pm

Address: 7935 Vineland Avenue, Sun Valley, CA 91352 

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/sun-valley-branch-book-club-4

The Canyon Readers Collective Book Club: Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law at Topanga Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for a book club discussion of Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach. This book is an exploration of what happens when wildlife clashes with human laws and norms—from thieving monkeys to murderous trees. For adults.

Roach investigates how authorities manage these natural offenders and the ethical dilemmas involved.

Copies are available to check out at the Circulation Desk

Where: Topanga Library, LACL

Date: Monday the 20^th

Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14639372#branch

Philosophical Horror Book Club: Victorian Psycho at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Join participants to discuss Victorian Psycho: A Novel by Virginia Feito.

Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family—Mr. Pounds can’t keep his eyes off Winifred’s chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband’s wandering gaze. Compounded with her disdain for the entitled Pounds children, Winifred finds herself struggling at every turn to stifle the violent compulsions of her past. French tutoring and needlework are one way to pass the time, as is admiring the ugly portraits in the gallery…and creeping across the moonlit lawns…

Patience. Winifred must have patience, for Christmas is coming, and she has very special gifts planned for the dear souls of Ensor House. Brimming with sardonic wit and culminating in a shocking conclusion, Victorian Psycho plunges readers into the chilling mind of an iconic new literary psychopath.

Virginia Feito, raised in Madrid and Paris, studied English and drama at Queen Mary University of London and advertising at Miami Ad School. She writes regularly for Vanity Fair Spain and is the author of the acclaimed Mrs. March.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Monday the 20^th

Time: 6 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/philosophical-horror-book-victorian-psycho

Robertson Readers Book Club: Turtles All the Way Down at Robertson Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us for the book club at the Robertson Branch. We will discuss the book and share other interesting books we have been reading. New members are welcome!

Print copies of each book will be available for checkout in the branch beginning three weeks before the book club meeting date while supplies last.

Upcoming meeting:

October 20: Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

Where: Robertson Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 20^th

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: 1719 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035 

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/robertson-readers-book-club-5

October QTBIPOC Write Nightat Chevalier’s – In-Person Event

We are pleased to welcome you to the first of our recurring Write Night series, exclusive to those who identify as QTBIPOC (Queer, Transgender, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color).

Safe spaces and safe places do not come into being on their own; they require nurturing, care, and constant growth. Chevalier’s Books is committed to offering a safer space for all our neighbors and community members, and we recognize the need to cultivate dedicated opportunities for historically marginalized writers to flourish, in life and creatively.

For queer and trans writers, for Black and Brown writers, and for writers who hold multiple, overlapping identities, a protected space is vital not just for creativity to flourish, but for true freedom of expression to blossom.

All Write Nights are donation based. QTBIPOC Write Nights require free advanced registration and, for the safety of all guests, will be facilitated by a QTBIPOC identifying staff member.

Where: Chevalier’s

Date: Monday the 20^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2025-10-20/october-qtbipoc-write-night

Environmental Storytelling: In Conversation with Eddie Ahn at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Welcome to a special conversation with author/artist Eddie Ahn (Advocate) and the former Mayor of Culver City, Meghan Sahli-Wells! This unique discussion will be about environmentalism and storytelling, with snacks and a Q&A to follow. This event will be held in person. All ticket-holders via eventbrite will also be entered for a raffle for original art (must be in person to win), and seats are limited.

Get your tickets at website link.

About the participants:

Eddie Ahn is the artist and author of Advocate, a graphic memoir about his journey as an environmental justice attorney. While working as the executive director of Brightline Defense, a San Francisco–based environmental justice nonprofit, he is a self-taught artist with over ten public art installations across San Francisco.

Meghan Sahli-Wells is the former Mayor of Culver City and currently a Board Director of the Sierra Club. She has been a long-time environmental advocate, championing policies on climate change, active transportation, equity, and more. She holds two bachelor’s degrees from UCLA where she majored in World Arts and Cultures, and in French.

Each month, we’ll dive into a book that informs and directs us about the state of the world, and how we can put what we learn into practice. We’ll have guest speakers, workshops, volunteer activities, and discussions on how we can positively impact the community. We’re looking forward to building a community that’s more connected around our collective well-being.

Our selection for October is If We Burn by Vincent Bevins.

From 2010 to 2020, more people participated in protests than at any other point in human history. Yet we are not living in more just and democratic societies as a result. Acclaimed journalist Vincent Bevins carried out hundreds of interviews around the world, guided by a single, puzzling question: How did so many mass protests lead to the opposite of what they asked for?

The result is a stirring work of history that connects events in a dozen countries and reveals that conventional wisdom on revolutionary change is gravely misguided. From the so-called Arab Spring to Gezi Park in Turkey, from Ukraine’s Euromaidan to student rebellions in Chile and Hong Kong, Bevins provides a blow-by-blow account of street movements and their consequences, recounted in gripping detail. In this groundbreaking study of an extraordinary chain of events, protesters and major actors look back on successes and defeats, offering urgent lessons for the future.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Monday the 20^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

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 20^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92501

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

Caroline Palmer & Workhorse at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Caroline Palmer will discuss Workhorse: A Novel, a richly drawn, unsettling, and wickedly funny story of envy and ambition set against the glamor and privilege of media and high society in New York City at its height.

At the turn of the millennium, Editorial Assistant Clodagh “Clo” Harmon wants nothing more than to rise through the ranks at the world’s most prestigious fashion magazine. There’s just one problem: she doesn’t have the right pedigree. Instead, Clo is a “workhorse” surrounded by beautiful, wealthy, impossibly well-connected “show horses” who get ahead without effort, including her beguiling cubicle-mate, Davis Lawrence, the daughter of a beloved but fading Broadway actress. Harry Wood, Davis’s boarding school classmate and a reporter with visions of his own media empire, might be Clo’s ally in gaming the system—or he might be the only thing standing between Clo and her rightful place at the top.

In a career punctuated by moments of high absurdity, sudden windfalls, and devastating reversals of fortune, Clo wades across boundaries, taking ever greater and more dangerous risks to become the important person she wants to be within the confines of a world where female ambition remains cloaked. But who really is Clo underneath all the borrowed designer clothes and studied manners—and who are we if we share her desires?

Hilariously observant and insightful, Workhorse is a brilliant page-turner about what it means to be in thrall to wealth, beauty, and influence, and the outrageous sacrifices women must make for the sake of success.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Monday the 20^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

This community-led, book discussion group meets virtually at 7 p.m. on the third Monday of the month. This book discusses a wide range of books, chosen by the members. To register, email library@santamonica.gov.

October 2025: The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

NOTE: See site for link and details.

Where: Santa Monica Main Library, SMPL

Date: Monday the 20^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

Dina Gilio-Whitaker, in conversation with Eric Tippeconnic, will discuss her book Who Gets to Be Indian?

An investigation into how Native American identity became a commodity, from cultural appropriation to ethnic fraud to disenrollment.

Settler capitalism has been so effective that the very identities of Indigenous people have been usurped, misconstrued, and weaponized. In Who Gets to Be Indian?, scholar and writer Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) explores how ethnic fraud and the commodification of Indianness has resulted in mass confusion about what it means to be Indigenous in the United States.

As an entry point to the seemingly intractable problem of ethnic fraud, Gilio-Whitaker critically looks to the film industry, including a case study of Sacheen Littlefeather, who is most known as the Native American woman that rejected an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando in 1973—though later revealed, she was not who she said she was. Gilio-Whitaker argues that this pretendian phenomenon originated in Southern California when the United States was forcing assimilation of Indians into white America culturally, but also into its capitalist economic system. With Indianness becoming a marketized commodity in the Hollywood film business, the field became open to anyone who could convincingly adopt an Indian persona.

Deeply researched using socio-historical analysis, Gilio-Whitaker offers insights from her own experiences grappling with identity to provide clarity and help readers understand how the commodification of Indianness have ultimately left many people of legitimate American Indian heritage to be disconnected from their tribes. Personal and compelling, Gilio-Whitaker takes settler capitalism to task and helps us better understand how we got here in order to counteract the abuses of pretendianism and disenrollment.

Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) is a lecturer of American Indian Studies at California State University San Marcos, and an independent consultant and educator in environmental justice policy planning. At CSUSM she teaches courses on environmentalism and American Indians, traditional ecological knowledge, religion and philosophy, Native women’s activism, American Indians and sports, and decolonization. She also works within the field of critical sports studies, examining the intersections of indigeneity and the sport of surfing. As a public intellectual, Dina brings her scholarship into focus as an award-winning journalist as well, contributing to numerous online outlets including Indian Country Today, the Los Angeles Times, High Country News and many more. Dina is co-author with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz of Beacon Press’s All the Real Indians Died Off: And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans, and As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice from Colonization to Standing Rock.

Comanche artist Eric Tippeconnic is an enrolled member of the Comanche Nation on his father’s side and his mother hails from Copenhagen, Denmark. Eric’s interest in painting and art was heavily influenced while growing up on numerous reservations and Native communities as well as from frequent travel to Denmark. Eric’s cultural diversity and love of history and art from an early age fostered interest and passion for creating art from the moment he could hold a pencil. Using bright, rich and vibrant color combinations, Eric utilizes his artwork to capture movement that serves as a metaphor for the viewer which boldly states that Native American cultures while intimately connected to their history are in fact contemporary, alive, and constantly evolving. In addition to his work as an artist, Eric is also an assistant professor of American Indian studies at Cal State University San Marcos.

Where: Skylight

Date: Monday, the 20^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-dina-gilio-whitaker-presents-who-gets-be-indian-w-eric-tippeconnic

Yaron Weitzman, with Miran Feder, & A Hollywood Ending: The Dreams and Drama of the LeBron Lakers at Vroman’s– In-Person Event

NBA journalist Yaron Weitzman lays out the high-stakes drama happening inside the Lakers’ organization at a crucial juncture in their history, as they try to juggle the warring priorities between Lebron James and the Buss family.

When LeBron James signed with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2018, the match looked like one made in heaven. Here was a living legend, the preeminent athlete of his generation, joining forces with one of the most iconic teams in all of sports. The Lakers, in the midst of their worst stretch in franchise history and reeling from the death of their legendary owner Dr. Jerry Buss, needed a savior. LeBron, fresh off ending Cleveland’s 50-year title drought, needed a new challenge to help further burnish his legacy. The script wrote itself.

A little over two years later, LeBron and Dr. Buss’ daughter, Jeanie, were standing shoulder to shoulder, hoisting the NBA finals trophy into the air. Having won their record-tying 17th NBA title, the Lakers had reclaimed their accustomed perch on top of the basketball world and seemed destined to dominate the NBA for years to come.

Traditionally, the Lakers didn’t celebrate championships, they celebrated dynasties. But this was a different Lakers’ organization, one beset by infighting. A single title wouldn’t be enough to cement Lebron James status as a Lakers’ legend or help him surpass the ghost of Michael Jordan. Both parties needed sustained success, but for that to happen they needed to be on the same page. Sadly, the 2020 title would represent the pinnacle of their pairing, and the beginning of a precipitous decline.

Drawing from over 250 interviews, Yaron Weitzman takes readers on a riveting, behind the scenes journey of this fraught partnership. From the Succession-like power struggle between the Buss children, to the rise of LeBron’s landscape-altering talent agency and its attempts to assert its own power within the Lakers’ walls, to the evolution of LeBron’s priorities and political voice, A Hollywood Ending is the definitive story of an American icon’s final years on stage, one portraying him, a fabled NBA franchise, and the world of modern professional sports in a light never seen before.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Monday, the 20^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-10-20/yaron-weitzman

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 20^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Meet Bram Stoker Award-winning author Pedro Iniguez, who will share his debut picture book, The Fib. Intended for ages 4 and up.

This program was made possible with the generous support of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles along with support from the Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund.

Where: Lincoln Heights Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 10 am

Address: 2530 Workman Street, Los Angeles, CA 90031 

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-pedro-iniguez

Tuesday Tales: A Travelin’ Storytime, Session 1 at Pico Branch Library, SMPL – In-Person Kids Event

This fun and engaging weekly series, featuring stories, songs, and rhymes, travels to a different library location each week. Limited space; free tickets available. For ages 3 – 5.

Where: Pico Branch Library, SMPL

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 10:30 am – 11 am

Address: 2201 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405

Website: https://www.santamonica.gov/events

Virtual Book Club: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls via La Crescenta Library, LACL – Online Event

Join us weekly on Zoom on Tuesday mornings at 11 am for the Virtual Book Club. In September we will be discussing Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix. For adults.

Please contact Marta Wiggins at mwiggins@library.lacounty.gov for your invite to join the Zoom discussion and other details about the Virtual Book Club. You can pick up your copy of Isola at the La Crescenta Library Customer Service Desk. Below is the breakdown for the weekly discussion.

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

Week 3: October 21: Chapters 21 – 31 Pages: 249 – 385

Week 4: October 28: Chapters 32 to the end of the book Pages: 386 to the end of the book

They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to Wellwood House in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, to give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened. Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who plans to marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who. Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid…and it’s usually paid in blood.

Where: La Crescenta Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14499563

Tuesday Tales: A Travelin’ Storytime, Session 2 at Pico Branch Library, SMPL – In-Person Kids Event

This fun and engaging weekly series, featuring stories, songs, and rhymes, travels to a different library location each week. Limited space; free tickets available. For ages 3 – 5.

Where: Pico Branch Library, SMPL

Date: Tuesday the 14^th

Time: 11:30 am – 12 pm

Address: 2201 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405

October 21: The Wide, Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, by Hampton Sides.

Where: Venice – Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 12:30 pm

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

From the New York Times bestselling author of Internment comes a timely and gripping social-suspense novel about book banning, activism, and standing up for what you believe.

After her dad abruptly abandons her family and her mom moves them a million miles from their Chicago home, Noor Khan is forced to start the last quarter of her senior year at a new school, away from everything and everyone she knows and loves.

Reeling from being uprooted and deserted, Noor is certain the key to survival is to keep her head down and make it to graduation.

But things aren’t so simple. At school, Noor discovers hundreds of books have been labeled “obscene” or “pornographic” and are being removed from the library in accordance with a new school board policy. Even worse, virtually all the banned books are by queer and BIPOC authors.

Noor can’t sit back and do nothing, because that goes against everything she believes in, but challenging the status quo just might put a target on her back. Can she effect change by speaking up? Or will small-town politics—and small-town love—be her downfall?

Samira Ahmed is the New York Times bestselling author of Love, Hate, & Other Filters and Internment. She was born in Bombay, India, and has lived in New York, Chicago, and Kauai, where she spent a year searching for the perfect mango. She invites you to visit her online at samiraahmed.com and on Twitter and Instagram @sam_aye_ahm.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 1 pm

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

We’ve all questioned why the chicken crossed the road, but did you ever stop to wonder where? Was he at a crosswalk or was he jaywalking? Roach looks at the places where the paved-over modern world rubs up against wilderness and explores human-wildlife interactions. This investigation is informative, intriguing and downright entertaining.

If you would like a copy of the book, please drop by Baldwin Park Library to pick up a copy or get a digital copy here: https://tinyurl.com/FuzzABC.

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

Where: Baldwin Hills Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 4181 Baldwin Park Blvd., Baldwin Park, CA 91706

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14736652

Book Club: Lies He told Me at Pico Rivera Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Please join Pico Rivera Library Book Club as we read Lies He Told Me by James Patterson and David Ellis. For adults.

Marcie and David Bowers are a happy couple living in small town with their two kids. After a video of David heroically saving a drowning person goes viral, Marcie comes to realize that her husband has a dark past that could cost them everything.

Where: Pico Rivera Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14117792

Classic Detectives Book Club: Murder Must Advertise at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Join participants to discuss Murder Must Advertise: A Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery byDorothy L. Sayers.

A classic tale of murder and scandal at a chic London advertising agency, featuring the dashing and brilliant Lord Peter Wimsey.

When executive Victor Dean dies from a fall down the iron staircase at Pym’s Publicity, a posh London ad agency, Lord Peter Wimsey goes undercover to investigate. Before his tragic demise, the victim had tried to warn Mr. Pym, the firm’s owner, about some scandalous behavior involving his employees.

Posing as a new copywriter, Wimsey discovers that Dean was part of an unsavory crowd at Pym’s whose recreational habits link them to the criminal underworld. With time running out and the body count rising, Wimsey must rush to find the truth before his identity is discovered and a determined killer strikes again.

Dorothy L. Sayers was born in 1893. She was one of the first women to be awarded a degree by Oxford University, and later she became a copywriter at an ad agency. In 1923 she published her first novel featuring the aristocratic detective Lord Peter Wimsey, who became one of the world’s most popular fictional heroes. She died in 1957.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 6 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/classic-detectives-book-club-murder-must-advertise

Third Tuesday Book Club: Disappearing Earth at Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us for a discussion of Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips.

All are welcome!

Where: Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: 600 Playa Vista Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90094

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/3rd-tuesday-book-club-14

Lucinda Berry, with James Queally, & This Is a Safe Space at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event

Join us to hear Lucinda Berry, in conversation with James Queally, discuss This Is a Safe Space.

A therapist discovers an unnerving connection between one of her patients and her own family in this gripping audio thriller by the bestselling author of The Perfect Child and One of Our Own.

Jenna, who runs a successful private therapy practice, still struggles with trust issues of her own. She’s made a promise to stop snooping in her husband Colten’s phone, but sometimes she can’t help herself. One night, she discovers a troubling exchange between him and his cousin Bodie, who’s one of his closest friends. A dancer from a bachelor party they both recently attended is threatening Bodie, claiming they crossed a line sexually and that she’ll expose the truth to his family if she doesn’t get what she wants. They don’t know much about this woman, or how far she’s willing to go. But Jenna might.

Lexus Chardonnay, the stage name of the dancer from the party, is one you don’t forget. And Jenna’s heard it before—from one of her clients.

Kaitlyn is a medical school student who dances on weekends to put herself through school. Jenna’s been her therapist for years, except she hasn’t seen her for three months. Not since Kaitlyn stopped showing up for treatment, without explanation. As Jenna begins to listen back to their past sessions, desperate for answers, a more complicated picture emerges, and she must decide who to trust as her career and her family hang in the balance.

USA TODAY bestselling author Lucinda Berry is a former psychologist and leading researcher in childhood trauma. She’s written multiple bestsellers reaching millions of readers worldwide. Some of her bestselling works include The Perfect Child, Saving Noah, When She Returned, The Best of Friends, and Keep Your Friends Close. Her books have been optioned for film and translated into several languages. If Berry isn’t chasing after her son, you can find her running through Los Angeles, prepping for her next marathon. To hear about her upcoming releases and other author news, visit her on social media (@LucindaBerryAuthor) or sign up for her newsletter online.

James Queally is an award-winning crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times and the author of the Russell Avery series from Counterpoint Books. He’s spent the past 15 years reporting from scenes of conflict and chaos across the country and emptied his notepads into novels dealing with imbalances in power between the criminal justice system and the people who it is supposed to serve. But his next book dials back the nuance in exchange for a little bit of Nazi punching.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 6:30 pm

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

Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-10-21/lucinda-berry-discusses-safe-space

Malibu Library Speaker Series: Obi Kaufmann at Malibu Library, LACL – In-Person Event

California poet, painter, and naturalist Obi Kaufmann will discuss his latest book, The State of Fire: Why California Burns. For adults.

Kaufmann is the author of the best-selling and award-winning California Field Atlas series. Over the past 10 years, he has authored six books that each describe an aspect of California’s biodiverse landscape. His unique books are full of art, maps, and wildlife renderings juxtaposed by science-based and insightful prose.

In The State of Fire, Kaufmann asks, How do we live with fire? What makes fire essential to a healthy and biodiverse Golden State? Kaufmann presents fires as a force of regeneration rather than apocalypse. The State of Fire explores the transformation of the resource landscape of California, from its ancient origins through its modern challenges to its future possibilities. He shares a deepened love for the natural world and a refreshingly hopeful vision of California’s future.

This event takes place at Malibu Library. RSVPs are required.

Where: Malibu Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14499989

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

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

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

Free event. 21+

Note: Please RSVP at site.

Where: The Aftermath Bar

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 10 pm

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Book Signing: Jeff Pearlman & Only God Can Judge Me: The Many Lives of Tupac Shakur at Chevalier’s – In-Person Event

In Only God Can Judge Me, accomplished biographer and New York Times bestselling author Jeff Pearlman tackles his most nuanced subject, telling the definitive story of Tupac Shakur in unprecedented depth. In this authoritative look at Tupac’s life, Pearlman skillfully recreates West Coast hip hop in all its glory, going inside Death Row Records and on the sets of movies like Juice and Poetic Justice to offer the most clear-eyed rendering to date of the man who still casts a shadow over modern hip hop. But more than just a biography of a complicated figure, Only God Can Judge Me also captures the time and place in which Tupac rose, a singular moment in music history when West Coast hip hop became a phenomenon and transformed popular music.

Featuring nearly seven hundred original interviews and never-before-published details from every corner of Tupac’s life, the result offers a truly singular portrait of one of modern pop culture’s most towering figures. Guided by the voices of those who knew and lived life alongside him, Only God Can Judge Me captures the layers of a man who, even thirty years after his death, remains as elusive as ever.

Jeff Pearlman is the New York Times bestselling author of ten books. His subjects include NFL legends Walter Pay­ton (Sweetness), Brett Favre (Gunslinger), and Bo Jackson (The Last Folk Hero), as well as the ’80s Los Angeles Lakers (Show­time), the 1986 New York Mets (The Bad Guys Won), and the ’90s Dallas Cowboys (Boys Will Be Boys). HBO adapted Showtime into the dramatic series Winning Time, produced and directed by Adam McKay. A former Sports Illus­trated senior writer and ESPN.com colum­nist, Pearlman is the host of the Two Writers Slinging Yang podcast.

Where: Chevalier’s

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2025-10-21/book-signing-jeff-pearlmans-only-god-can-judge-me-many-lives-tupac-shakur

Book Club: Carmilla at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event

Join participants to discuss Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s compelling tale of a young woman’s seduction by a female vampire was a source of influence for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which it predates by over a quarter century. Carmilla was originally serialized from 1871 to 1872 and went on to inspire adaptations in film, opera, and beyond, including the cult classic web series by the same name.

Pick up your copy of the book in-store!

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-53d35ccc-2b8f-465a-9c50-413447040f40

Romance Book Club at pages, a bookstore – In-Person Event

Join our new Kiss & Tell romance book club meets monthly to discuss a romance novel and generally takes place on the third Tuesday of each month at 7:00 pm. At each meeting we discuss and vote on the next month’s book club selection.

Facilitated by Lisa Becker

RSVP for further information.

Where: pages, a bookstore

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2025-10-21/romance-book-club

Book Event: Lindsey Kelk, with Ali Hazelwood, & Christmas Fling at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Lindsey Kelk, in conversation with AIi Hazelwood, will discuss her holiday romance Christmas Fling.

A book signing will follow the discussion.

RSVP: Ticketed event

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

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

Mystery & Thriller Book Group: Killers of a Certain Age via Santa Monica Public Library, SMPL – Online Event

This community-led, monthly book discussion group meets virtually at 7 p.m. on the third Tuesday of the month. This book group discusses domestic and international titles in the mystery and thriller genres. To register, email library@santamonica.gov.

October 2025: Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Santa Monica Public Library, SMPL

Date: Tuesday the 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: Online Event (see site) 

Website: https://www.santamonica.gov/events

At Skylight: Myriam Gurba, with Olga Garcia, & Poppy State at Skylight – In-Person Event

Myriam Gurba, in conversation with Olga Garcia, will discuss Poppy State.

Myriam Gurba has lived in California her entire life, with its plants and soils, forests and ecology, immersing herself in the language of the landscape as refracted through the languages and memories of her ancestors. In Poppy State, California plants serve as structural anchors in a wildly inventive work of narrative nonfiction that is part botanical criticism, part personal storytelling, and part study of place. The reader is invited to commune with California with Gurba as their guide, ushered through a compendium of anecdotes, reminiscences, utterances, lists, incantations, newspaper articles, and other ephemera.

Through the stories of these plants she comes to a new understanding of what occurs in the cultivation of a soul. Gurba learns if she can care for her body as she does her plants, her soul can thrive—like the California poppy on her kitchen windowsill. And through walks in the Angeles National Forest, she visits oaks, crows, elderberries, and sycamores, while foraging for acorns, flowers, and berries to adorn her altar at home. Poppy State is a riveting tour de force.

Myriam Gurba is the author of four books, including Dahlia Season (2007) which won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, Painting their Portraits in Winter (2015; Mean (2017), a true crime memoir that was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in LGBTQ Nonfiction, the Publishing Triangle’s Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction, and the PEN America Award for Creative Nonfiction; and Creep: Accusations and Confessions, her first essay collection, which includes her viral essay, “Pendeja, You Ain’t Steinbeck: My Bronca with Fake Ass Social Justice Literature,” and was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism. Gurba’s writing been widely anthologized and has also appeared in publications such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Believer, Paris Review, and TIME. She is also a teacher, editor, anti-rape activist, public speaker, practitioner of plant-based magic, and a co-founder of Dignidad Literaria, a grassroots organization that combats white supremacy in the publishing industry.

Olga García Echeverría (She/Her/Ella) is the author of Falling Angels: Cuentos y poemas. Her work has been published in The Sun Magazine, Imaniman: Poets Writing on the Anzaldúan Borderlands, Lavandería: A Mixed Load of Women, Wash, and Words, U.S. Latino Literature Today, Telling Tongues: A Latin Anthology on Language, among others. As co-literary executor of the beloved lesbian Colombian writer and publisher, tatiana de la tierra, she has worked with queer and feminist presses in the U.S. and abroad to help bring to fruition such projects as the republishing of de la tierra’s For the Hard Ones: A Lesbian Phenomenology (Sinister Wisdom 2018) and most recently Redonda y radical: antología poética de tatiana de la tierra (Sincronía Casa Editorial 2022). Olga has been an educator in the literary arts for over 25 years and currently teaches literature in the Chicanx Latinx Studies Department at California State University of Los Angeles.

Where: Skylight

Date: Tuesday, the 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-myriam-gurba-presents-poppy-state-w-olga-garcia

Ticketed: Olivie Blake, with Chuck Tingle, & Girl Dinner at Vroman’s– In-Person Event

Olivie Blake, author of The Atlas Six, in conversation with Chuck Tingle, will discuss Girl Dinner, a darkly fun novel about power, lust, and eating your fill, as wealthy moms and sorority girls practice a sinister new wellness trend.

Good girls deserve a treat.

Every member of The House, the most exclusive sorority on campus, and all its alumni, are beautiful, high-achieving, and universally respected.

After a freshman year she would rather forget, sophomore Nina Kaur knows being one of the chosen few accepted into The House is the first step in her path to the brightest possible future. Once she’s taken into their fold, the House will surely ease her fears of failure and protect her from those who see a young woman on her own as easy prey.

Meanwhile, adjunct professor Dr. Sloane Hartley is struggling to return to work after accepting a demotion to support her partner’s new position at the cutthroat University. After 18 months at home with her newborn daughter, Sloane’s clothes don’t fit right, her girl-dad husband isn’t as present as he thinks he is, and even the few hours a day she’s apart from her child fill her psyche with paralyzing ennui. When invited to be The House’s academic liaison, Sloane enviously drinks in the way the alumnae seem to have it all, achieving a level of collective perfection that Sloane so desperately craves.

As Nina and Sloane each get drawn deeper into the arcane rituals of the sisterhood, they learn that living well comes with bloody costs. And when they are finally invited to the table, they will have to decide just how much they can stomach in the name of solidarity.

Olivie Blake is the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six, Alone with You in the Ether, One for My Enemy, Masters of Death, Januaries, and Gifted & Talented. As Alexene Farol Follmuth, she is also the author of the young adult rom-coms Twelfth Knight and My Mechanical Romance. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and son.

Chuck Tingle is the USA Today bestselling author of Camp Damascus and Straight. He is a mysterious force of energy behind sunglasses and a pink mask. He is also an anonymous author of romance, horror, and fantasy. Chuck was born in Home of Truth, Utah, and lives in Los Angeles, California. Chuck writes to prove love is real, because love is the most important tool we have when resisting the endless cosmic void. Not everything people say about Chuck is true, but the important parts are.

 Where: Vroman’s

Date: Tuesday, the 21^st

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-10-21/olivie-blake

The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rick Lupert & Bree Bailey – Online Zoom Event

Cobalt Poets Reading & Open Mic and host Rick Lupert welcomes featured poet Bree Bailey. 

Bree Bailey (she/her) is a proud giggly Latina poet living in Southern Austin, TX. As a mental health advocate and former high school educator, Bree speaks openly about her experiences with PTSD, depression, and anxiety, while also doing her best to bask in the light, beauty, and grace of the world. She is the author of Wailing on Whisper Street, her debut collection of poetry.

Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event

Date: Tuesday, the 21^st

Tuesday Night Café: Features & Open Mic at Tuesday Night Project, Aratani Courtyard/Union Center – In-Person & YouTube Hybrid Event

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.

ONE MORE SHOW OF THE 2025 SEASON. IT’S THE FINAL SHOW OF 2025. 💥

The nights are cooling down, we’re deep in autumn, come warm up with us one last time before we hibernate until next April.

FEATURING

MILCK is a musician who has performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert.

Umi Fangyu Hsu is an artist who traces migration, mycelium & memory through sound.

Kuni Yoshida is a Japanese calligrapher of over 34yrs and a hip hop dancer.

Christian Perfas aka soul stuf is a second generation Filipino-American spoken word poet who speaks on the Song, Truth Universal, and Flow of his own wandering spirit. Originally trained in the art of hip-hop and improv, Christian has learned from legendary spaces such as The Spoken Literature Art Movement at Art-Share LA, The Upright Citizens Brigade on Sunset, and Richard Horvitz’s 5 Steps To Success in North Hollywood. He is the author of the poetry collection Play (World Stage Press, 2022).

Sarah Hsiao was born and raised in Southern California, Sarah began playing the harp at the age of eleven with Mindy Ball. She was principal harpist of the Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra for four years, during which she performed biannual concerts at the renowned Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa. She was also principal harpist for Global Harmony Symphony, a community orchestra in which she arranged and performed orchestral classical and pop music for biannual concerts. Sarah recently graduated from the University of Southern California, where she studied with JoAnn Turovsky for her Bachelor of Music in Harp Performance and was a member of the USC Symphony Orchestra and Student Symphony Orchestra of USC, a student-led organization dedicated to playing beautiful music.

DJ

@thatflypinay

RESIDENT HOST

@farmerjohneric

VENDORS

@ttz.online

@ubeforubae

✨Soul Stuf is back with Sarah Hsiao as Soul Hsiao and they’re bringing a harp! Kuniharu Yoshida is introducing a new project called “Sound of Calligraphy” and, according to his tech needs, he’s bringing brush, ink, fabric canvas, and (ominously) sound equipment. Umi Hsu is solo this time and in conversation with various ferments. And MILCK…you never want to miss MILCK when she comes through TNC.

ttz* is BACK and Ube for U Bae is BACK BACK. Bring a tote to carry home zines and pastries. DJ THATFLYPINAY is closing out our season and we have a special guest host…jk it’s our beloved resident host Johneric Concordia, back to bookend the season.

🎤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 21^st

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Address: 120 Judge John Aiso St., Los Angeles, CA 90012

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Da Poetry Lounge: Open Mic Night at Ora Café in Leimert Park – In-Person Event

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

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

Masks are encouraged.

Where: Ora Café

Date: Tuesday, the 21^st

Time: 9 pm – 11 pm

Start your morning with a lively discussion of Percival Everett’s The Trees: A Novel.

Whether you loved it, hated it, or haven’t finished it, we want to see you at our Mystery Book Group at America’s Oldest Children’s Bookstore!

We will be meeting to discuss the book outside of the shop in the circle in front of Star Cafe.

Where: Once Upon a Time, Montrose

Date: Wednesday the 22^nd

Time: 9 am

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020 

Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/mystery-book-group-trees-percival-everett

Wednesday Book Club: The Soul of a Woman at Westchester – Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us for a discussion about the book The Soul of a Woman: on impatient love, long life, and good witches by Isabel Allende.

New members welcome!

Where: Westchester – Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 22^nd

Time: 12 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/wednesday-book-club-27

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 22^nd

Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm

Address: On-air Event (live)

When biracial author Jane’s latest novel, a centuries-spanning epic, is rejected, she turns to Hollywood. Jane meets with a hot young producer who envisions the greatest biracial comedy ever to hit the small screen. Things finally seem to be going right for Jane, until they go terribly wrong.



The library will have copies for check-out or check our e-media page for electronic access on Libby and hoopla.

Please bring your book suggestions for future meetings.

Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 22^nd

Time: 3:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/eagle-rock-book-club-3

Author Talk: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai & Finding My Way via Virtual Event, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us to hear Malala Yousafzai speak about her astonishing memoir, Finding My Way. Malala shares how she has navigated life as someone whose darkest moments threatened to define her narrative while seeking the freedom to find out who she truly is.

Thrust onto the public stage at fifteen years old after the Taliban’s brutal attack on her life, Malala Yousafzai quickly became an international icon known for bravery and resilience. But away from the cameras and crowds, she spent years struggling to find her place in an unfamiliar world. Finding My Way is a story of friendship and first love, of anxiety and self-discovery, of trying to stay true to yourself when everyone wants to tell you who you are. In it, Malala traces her path from high school loner to reckless college student to a young woman at peace with her past. Through candid, often messy moments like nearly failing exams, getting ghosted, and meeting the love of her life, Malala reminds us that real role models aren’t perfect—they’re human.

Finding My Way is a vulnerable, surprising memoir that buzzes with authenticity, sharp humor, and tenderness. It is an intimate look at the life of a young woman taking charge of her destiny and is a deeply personal testament to the strength it takes to be unapologetically yourself. Register now for an online conversation you cannot miss!

About the Author: Malala Yousafzai is an education activist, the youngest-ever Nobel laureate, bestselling author, and award-winning film producer. She was born in Mingora, Pakistan in 1997 and graduated from Oxford University in 2020.

Where: Virtual Program, LACL

Date: Wednesday the 22^nd

Time: 4 pm – 5 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

New members are always welcome. You may check out the book (or e-book) for free with your library card.

Where: Valley Plaza Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 22^nd

Time: 6 pm – 7:15 pm

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

Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 22^nd

Time: 6 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/author-talk-clare-bursky

Sci-Fi Short Fiction Reading Club via Frances Howard Goldwyn – Hollywood Regional Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event

Members of the reading group meet monthly on Zoom to discuss a short work of science fiction. October’s selection is I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison.

RSVP:

Please email nneata@lapl.org if you are interested in joining. You will be added to the mailing list and receive a link to the meeting.

Where: Frances Howard Goldwyn – Hollywood Regional Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 22^nd

Time: 6 pm – 7:15 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/sci-fi-short-fiction-reading-club

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 22^nd

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

Address: On-Air Event (Radio Ollin)

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

Romantasy Book Club: The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen. Copies available at the library. For adults.

Hart is a marshal, tasked with patrolling the strange and magical wilds of Tanria. It’s an unforgiving job, and Hart’s got nothing but time to ponder his loneliness. Mercy never has a moment to herself. She’s been single-handedly keeping Birdsall & Son Undertakers afloat in defiance of sullen jerks like Hart, who seems to have a gift for showing up right when her patience is thinnest. After yet another exasperating run-in with Mercy, Hart finds himself penning a letter addressed simply to “A Friend”. Much to his surprise, an anonymous letter comes back in return, and a tentative friendship is born. If only Hart knew he’s been bearing his soul to the person who infuriates him most—Mercy. As the dangers from Tanria grow closer, so do the unlikely correspondents. But can their blossoming romance survive the fated discovery that their pen pals are their worst nightmares—each other?

Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date: Wednesday the 22^nd

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14511776

Courtney Adamo & Family Home: Inspiring Ideas for a Home Filled With Joy at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event

Join us to hear Courtney Adamo present and discuss Family Home: Inspiring Ideas for a Home Filled With Joy.

Parents of five Courtney and Michael Adamo share how you can create a space that suits your pre-kids style but also meets the needs of a growing family.

With stunning photography of homes of all shapes and sizes, from sprawling spaces in California and Byron Bay to inner-city London pads, Courtney and Michael share tips for how your home can inspire play, encourage kids to be independent and be a practical yet beautiful place that the whole family will enjoy being in.

The Family Home authors Courtney and Michael Adamo are parents of five children, ranging from school-aged to young adults, and experts in family life. Born in the US, they moved to London as a new couple in 2003 and lived there for 12 years before travelling the world with their young family and settling in Byron Bay, Australia.

Courtney was the co-founder of Babyccino Kids, one of the first family lifestyle and parenting blogs in the UK. As Babyccino’s audience and engagement grew, Courtney learned what mothers from around the UK, US and Europe found rewarding, challenging, perplexing and comforting, and created resources to respond to these needs. Courtney has since created online courses, e-books and a membership program that allows her to connect with parents from all over the world by sharing a look inside her home, teaching the principles that guided her and Michael in raising their kids, and tips for creating a happy, comfortable and stylish family home.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore (In the Courtyard)

Date: Wednesday the 22^nd

Time: 6:30 pm

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

Lauren Okie’s The Best Worst Thing is an intimate story about starting over, second chances, and two people who cannot help falling into each other’s orbit once again. All things considered, Nicole Speyer has an amazing life. At least that’s what she tells herself. She’s got a beautiful house, a relatively successful fertility podcast, and a perfect husband, Gabe. The only thing that’s less than ideal is her years-long struggle with infertility—and how, with every passing day, she and Gabe seem to drift a little further apart.

But then, mere hours after a Hail Mary embryo transfer to her gestational carrier, Nicole discovers Gabe’s been sleeping with their dog walker, and her world turns upside down. Suddenly, a jobless, childless, and now-husbandless Nicole finds herself at the doorstep of somebody she tried to say goodbye to a long time ago.

Logan Milgram: a former colleague with serious golden retriever energy who happens to be laugh-out-loud funny, a colossal nerd, and legitimately kind of hot. When Logan opens his door that night, it’s like no time has passed. And as they fall back into each other’s lives, Nicole starts recognizing herself in the mirror again. She even begins to like what she sees. And then, like a cruel joke, she gets the news she’s spent a lifetime waiting for: her surrogate is finally pregnant.

As her relationship with Logan develops from a blast-from-the-past fling into something much deeper, Nicole struggles to balance her past, present, and future. Racing against the clock, she must learn to forgive her body for falling short and recognize that sometimes, it’s the biggest betrayals in life that set us free. With everything on the line, can Nicole accept love from the greatest man she’s ever known…even if it’s nothing like the story she’d written for herself?

Date: Wednesday the 22^nd

Time: 6:30 pm

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

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2025-10-22/special-author-event-lauren-okie

Francesca Wade & Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Francesca Wade will discuss and sign Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife.

Drawing on never-before-seen interviews, a richly researched, sweeping examination of one of the most influential and mythologized literary figures of the 20th century and her partner’s emergence from the shadows after her death, in the decades-long fight to ensure her legacy.

Gertrude Stein’s salon at 27 rue de Fleurus in the 6th arrondissement of Paris is the stuff of literary legend. Many have tried to capture the spirit and glamour of the place that once entertained and fostered the likes of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse, but perhaps none as determinedly, and self-consciously, as Stein herself. In this new biography of the polarizing, trailblazing author, collector, salonnière, and tastemaker, Francesca Wade rescues Stein from the tangle of contradictions that has characterized her legacy, expertly presenting us with this towering literary figure as we’ve never seen her before.

A genius to her admirers, a charlatan to her detractors, Stein achieved international celebrity in 1933 with her bestselling memoir, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, written in the voice of her devoted partner—a triumph which, ironically, only drew attention away from the avant-garde poetry she called her “real” writing. After Stein’s death in 1946, Alice B. Toklas made it her mission to shepherd all of Stein’s unpublished writing into print, all the while negotiating her own fraught role in the complex mythology they had built together. The biographers who flocked to Stein’s newly opened archive found a surprising trove of secrets which would change Stein’s image forever: a forgotten novel, a cache of love letters, and a series of notebooks which shed entirely new light on her early years in Paris.

Pushing beyond the conventions of literary biography, Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife is a bold, innovative examination of the nature of legacy and memory itself, in which Wade uncovers the origins of Stein’s radical writing and reveals new depths to the storied relationship that made it possible. A captivating, brilliant work of biography, Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife is a groundbreaking examination of a true literary giant.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Wednesday the 22^nd

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Facilitated by Dave Suiter and Jeff Resnik.

PURCHASE TICKET at website link.

Where: pages Off-site at Culture Brewing Co.

Date: Wednesday the 22^nd

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 327 Manhattan Beach Blvd., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2025-10-22/books-and-brews-book-club

Book Event: Patricia Briggs & Blind Date with a Werewolf at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Patricia Briggs will present and discuss her new novel and popular series, Blind Date with a Werewolf.

A book signing will follow the discussion.

RSVP: Ticketed event

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Wednesday the 22^nd

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

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

RECESS Open Mic is at SIPA HQ, Palms Up Academy – In-Person Event

RECESS Open Mic is at SIPA HQ on Wednesdays.

This dynamic open mic is the most accessible public program in the Palms Up Academy curriculum and manifests their mission statement in a physical (and digital) space.

Join them at the intersection of Historic Filipino town & The World: Search to Involve Pilipino Americans.

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

Where: SIPA HQ

Date: Wednesday, the 22^nd

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

How To Get Into the Twin Palms is the story of Anya, a young woman living in a Russian neighborhood in Los Angeles, who struggles between retaining her parents’ Polish culture and trying to assimilate into her adopted community. She lusts after Lev, a Russian man who frequents the Twin Palms nightclub down the block from Anya’s apartment. It is Anya’s wish to gain entrance to this seemingly exclusive club. How To Get Into the Twin Palms is a really funny and often moving book that provides a unique twist on the immigrant story, and provides a credible portrait of the city of Los Angeles, its neighborhoods and character.

Karolina Waclawiak is the author of three critically acclaimed novels, How to Get Into the Twin Palms, The Invaders, and Life Events. She lives in Los Angeles.

Grace Krilanovich is the author of The Orange Eats Creeps, a finalist for the Believer Book Award and the Indie Booksellers’ Choice Award in 2010 and reissued in 2025 for Two Dollar Radio’s New Classics series. Her work has appeared in Black Clock, The Rumpus, The Comics Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She was a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree in 2010. She lives in Los Angeles.

Katya Apekina is a novelist, screenwriter and translator. Her new novel, Mother Doll, is out now. Her debut, The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish, was named a Best Book of 2018 by Kirkus, Buzzfeed and others and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize. Katya translated poetry and prose from Russian for Night Wraps the Sky: Writings by and about Mayakovsky (FSG, 2008), short-listed for the Best Translated Book Award. She lives in Los Angeles.

Where: Skylight

Date: Wednesday the 22^nd

Time: 7 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-karolina-waclawiak-presents-how-get-twin-palms-w-grace-krilanovich-katya-apekina

Vroman’s Fiction Reading Group: The Vegetarian at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

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

This event is free and open to the public.

October’s pick is The Vegetarian: A Novel by Han Kang.

Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.

Where: Vroman’s, 2^nd Floor event space

Date: Wednesday, the 22^nd

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-10-22/vromans-fiction-reading-group

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

The Anansi Writers Workshop was founded in 1990 by Kamau Daáood, Akilah Oliver, Nafis Nabawi and Anthony Lyons. In 1993, Michael Datcher initiated the development of a three-part format for the workshop. Our tradition of a community workshop began in the late 1960s at the Watts Writers’ Workshop, where World Stage co-founder Kamau Daáood started his writing career. Hosted by Jessica Gallion aka “Yellawoman.”

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

Suggested: $10.00 Donation via PayPal: The World Stage Gallery.

NOTE: See site for further details and any change in the schedule. Contact on Instagram @ _yellawoman.

Where: The World Stage (use left rear entrance)

Date: Wednesday, the 22^nd

Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Story Salon: Theme: Batter Dipped Freestyle at Art Parlor in Valley Village – In-Person & Virtual Hybrid Event

Los Angeles’s longest running storytelling venue is now a hybrid event!

An alternative to stand-up clubs + self-conscious performance spaces

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

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

Theme: Batter Dipped Freestyle.

Where: Art Parlor

Date: Wednesday the 22^nd

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

Address: 5302 Laurel Canyon Blvd., Valley Village, CA 91607 

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 22^nd

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Address: Online event (see site)

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

Gaby Moreno has won a GRAMMY in the “Best Latin Pop” album category for her acoustic album “X Mi (Vol. 1).

In an evening that celebrates the best in music, Gaby Moreno stood out at the 64th annual Grammy Premiere Ceremony on Sunday as a performer and winner.

The Guatemalan singer/songwriter, alongside Mexican artist El David Aguilar, offered a rendition of “Luna de Xelajú” that was nothing short of mesmerizing. The set not only showcased Moreno’s exquisite vibrato, but also paid homage to the rich heritage of Latin American folk music.

Brenda Vaca is a Xicana poet, author, and independent publisher from Sejatnga, Unceded Tongva Territory, known as South Whittier, CA. She earned her B.A. in English at U.C. Berkeley with a Minor in Creative Writing. Later she went on to graduate school in Berkeley earning a Master of Divinity and a Master of Arts in Biblical Languages from the Pacific School of Religion and Graduate Theological Union. She served as an ordained elder working primarily in “Latinx” communities with the United Methodist Church for 10 years until an interfaith pilgrimage to Central America in August 2015 altered the course of her life. Poetry and writing have been lifelong passions.

Riot of Roses is her debut collection of poetry published by her indie house, Riot of Roses Publishing House. She is currently working on her first children’s book, Buttonz Finds His Mojo, under the imprint Oh My Gatos Books. She was the host of the weekly Instagram live series “Friday Fire” and the monthly co-host of “The Post Up” open mic at Uptown Plants Casa Verde LA in Uptown Whittier, CA.

Diosa Xochiquetzalcoatl is a multilingual and multidimensional, 3x slam/spoken word champion and international poetiza and workshop presenter. She is a seasoned language arts educator with a Bachelor’s in English and Master’s in Cross-Cultural Teaching. Diosa X is a proud member of Tesoro, an international women’s poetry troupe, Circulo de poetas and Writers, California Poets in Schools, as a teacher-in-training, CABE and Inlandia. Diosa comes to you today with her third poetry collection, West of the Santa Ana and Other Sacred Places brought to you by Riot of Roses Publishing. Her other collections include, A Church of My Own (2021) and Hechizera: Sus Sultry Spells (Editorial Raíces, 2022). You can find all of her pertinent information at https://linktr.ee/DiosaX.

Where: Riot of Roses Press

Date: Wednesday, the 22^nd

Time: 8 pm

Host Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry will welcome feature Simone Swearingen.

Simone Swearingen is a poet whose voice rises from the sun-soaked streets of Southern California, weaving a sultry sound with piercing intrigue. Her work is a hypnotic blend of sensuality and strength—words that don’t just land, but linger.

She is a regularly performing artist with LionLike Mindstate, gracing the stage at the annual Pomona Poetry & Book Fest for four consecutive years, since its inception.

Her newly released book, Mindful Musings, is a testament to her evolution as an artist. Intimate and thoughtful, the collection explores the intersections of love, desire, empowerment, and resilience.

When she’s not working in her field of electrical engineering, you can find her spending time with loved ones, traveling the world, at an open mic, and—you guessed it—writing. Whether on the page or behind the mic, her presence allures and incites connection.

$5 cover fee, cash only

Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange

Date: Wednesday, the 22^nd

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

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

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

Afternoon Book Club: The Hungry Season at Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss The Hungry Season: A Journey of War, Love, and Survival by Lisa M. Hamilton. For adults.

As combat rages across the highlands of Vietnam and Laos, a child is born. Ia Moua enters the world at the bottom of the social order, both because she is part of the Hmong minority and because she is a daughter, not a son. When, at thirteen, she is promised in marriage to a man three times her age, it appears that Ia’s future has been decided for her. But after brutal communist rule upends her life, this intrepid girl resolves to chart her own defiant path. With ceaseless ambition and an indestructible spirit, Ia builds a new existence for herself and, before long, for her children, first in the refugee camps of Thailand and then in the industrial heartland of California’s San Joaquin Valley.

Where: Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 23^rd

Time: 12 pm – 1 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14649403

“Saved by a Story” Seniors Writing Group at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Come enjoy creativity and community in a nonjudgmental environment. Discover the bounty of stories that lies within!

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 23^rd

Time: 1 pm – 2:30 pm

Address:1246 Glendon Ave., Montebello, CA 90024

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

Queer Visitors Book Club: Crafting Bitesize Narratives at Underdog Bookstore, Monrovia – In-Person Event

Underdog Bookstore is a local event host for Drag Story Hour’s new book club for adults—Queer Visitors!

Our next club meeting is Thursday, October 23rd from 5-7 pm. We’re continuing our journey along the yellow brick road with the second installment, The Marvelous Land of Oz!

Join us in community to discuss queer books, radical joy, and the timeless magic of Oz. All are welcome here!

RSVP at website link.

Where: Underdog Bookstore

Date: Thursday the 23^rd

Time: 5 pm – 7 pm

Address: 312 South Myrtle Avenue, Monrovia, CA, 91016

Website: https://www.underdogbookstore.org/events/queer-visitors-book-club-5y894

Cover to Cover Book Club: at Mid- Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join participants for a discussion of the monthly book selection.

October 23: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

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

Where: Mid-Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 23^rd

Time: 6 pm

Address: 16244 Nordhoff Street, North Hills, CA 91343

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/cover-cover-book-club-1

Between the Lines Book Club: A Talent for Murder at Castaic Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join participants to delve into A Talent for Murder by Peter Swanson. Copies are available at the Customer Service desk and newcomers are always welcome! For adults

Martha Ratliff conceded that she’d likely spend her life alone. But then she met Alan, a charming salesman whose job took him on the road half the year. A year in and the marriage was good, except for that strange blood streak on the back of one of his shirts. Her curiosity turning to suspicion, Martha investigates the cities Alan visited over the past year and uncovers a disturbing pattern—five unsolved cases of murdered women.

Where: Castaic Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 23^rd

Time: 6 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14543412

Special Author Event: Amanda Navarro Shaw & Stay Away at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event

Join us to welcome Amanda Navarro Shaw to discuss the publication of her new book, Stay Away.

Stay Away is a powerful and personal self-help book that explores author Amanda Shaw’s journey to overcome cynophobia—an intense fear of dogs that triggered panic attacks and deeply impacted her daily life for decades.

Told through relatable, real-life experiences, this book offers not just a story of resilience but also practical tools, encouragement, and hope for anyone navigating fear, anxiety, or phobias. Amanda combines vulnerability with guidance to help readers understand the roots of fear and how to break free from it.

Whether you’re struggling yourself or supporting someone who is, Stay Away is a reminder that you’re not alone and that healing is not only possible, but within reach.

Amanda Shaw is a Brazilian-born marketing professional, professor, and proud Los Angeles mom who turned one of her biggest fears into her first published book.

Throughout her successful career, Amanda carried a lifelong fear many don’t talk about: cynophobia, the fear of dogs.

Now, she’s using her voice to break the silence around phobias and mental health. Her debut book, Stay Away, is part memoir, part guide, and all heart. It’s a powerful reminder that no fear is too small to overcome.

RSVP

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Thursday the 23^rd

Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2025-10-23/special-author-event-amanda-navarro-shaw

Andrew Rubin, with Greg Hope White, & Hell or High Winter at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event

Andrew Rubin, in conversation with Greg Hope White, will present and discuss Hell or High Water.

Hell or High Winter is a contemporary, urban reimagining of the myth of Hermes and Persephone. A supernatural action/adventure with sharp wit and a deep soul. Over the Ages, gods and goddesses have come in and out of fashion. Each deity struggles to cope with their dwindling popularity. Some fade into oblivion, refusing to answer the desperate prayers of mortals as they establish a new identity beneath the stars. Others spend the millennia waiting by the proverbial phone…desperate to be called into service. Hermes and his godly cohorts confront a new challenge—how to survive without constant worship and adoration. It may just be that even mystical beings can become addicted…gods and goddesses are junkies for the thrill of controlling a mortal’s fate. In the digital age of the 21st Century,what the hell is Hermes, Messenger of the Gods, to do?…Because no one is listening.

Andrew Rubin is a filmmaker, writer, and co-founder of the mental health education company Symptom Media. A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he studied Film Production and History, he has spent over a decade in the trenches of Hollywood development as a screenwriter. Andrew codirected the inspirational documentary Ride with Larry, about Parkinson’s, inspired by his father’s battle against the disease. The film’s segment exploring Parkinson’s and medical marijuana received global attention, and helped spark a broader conversation about dignity, treatment, and the role of alternative medicine. He is also the cofounder and president of Symptom Media, an innovative mental health education platform used by over 500 universities, hospitals, and medical schools worldwide to help train students and clinicians and destigmatize mental illness. Andrew lives in California, where he divides his time between San Diego and Los Angeles.

Greg Cope White is a screenwriter, producer, and author. He served six years in the Marines, earned the rank of Sergeant, then packed his honorable discharge and moved to New York City to study acting and writing. In addition to writing the best-selling memoir The Pink Marine, he’s written television shows and movies produced by CBS, NBC, Fox, Disney, Comedy Central, HBO, and Netflix. Known for writing comedy with a heart, he sought to write a memoir through that same lens. His memoir sold to Sony and Netflix, is produced by Norman Lear, with Greg a writer and producer. Currently in production, in a full circle moment, this show is the third Norman Lear series on which Greg has had the immeasurable pleasure of writing.

Where: Diesel

Date: Thursday the 23^rd

Time: 6:30 pm

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

Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-10-23/andrew-rubin-discusses-and-signs-hell-or-high-winter

Spooky Story Slam at The Pop Hop – In-Person Event

The Spooky Story Slam is inspired by the infamous ghost story contest where Mary Shelley began writing her timeless novel Frankenstein. Bring a story and join the writer of the award winning graphic novel series Mary Shelley School for Monsters for a night celebrating this literary legend with chilling tales about comics and misunderstood monsters.

$10 admission + free spin for merch on the mystery vending machine.

$40 admission includes a signed copy of The Killing Stone graphic novel, a free spin for merch on the mystery vending machine, and stickers!

Refreshments will be served.

wicked_tree_press 👻

Where: The Pop Hop

Date: Thursday the 23^rd

Time: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Join us for a romance novel panel!

Authors Joss Richard, Elissa Sussman, Kate Spencer, Susan Lee, and Falon Ballard convene to discuss their newest novels, their writing process, and to take questions from the audience. Come ready to chat about all things love and spice!

Joss Richard (she/her) is an editorial & social director who’s worked at companies such as Hello Sunshine and Reese’s Book Club, The Walt Disney Company, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Netflix, and Paramount. She’s the creator and host of Three’s Company, Too: A Rewatch Podcast and has been formally recognized with a Daytime Emmy Award. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Richard currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and rescue pittie, Annie.

Elissa Sussman is the bestselling author of Totally and Completely Fine, Once More with Feeling, Funny You Should Ask, and three young adult novels. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their many pets.

Susan Lee is a USA Today bestselling author of both young adult and adult romantic comedies. Her work has been featured in national outlets such as Buzzfeed, NPR, People Magazine and Pop Sugar. After a long career in Corporate American, Susan now channels her energy into publishing Happily Ever Afters for those historically underrepresented in Romance. Aside from books, her many hyper fixations include listening to K-pop, binge watching K-dramas, collecting sneakers, building mechanical keyboards, and obsessing over her diva chihuahua, Buttercup.

Falon Ballard is the USA Today Bestselling author of several rom-coms and the upcoming romantasy Something Wicked. When she’s not reading a romance book, writing a romance book, or talking about romance books, you can probably find her at Disneyland.

Kate Spencer is the bestselling author of In a New York Minute, One Last Summer, All’s Fair in Love and Pickleball, and The Dead Moms Club, and the recipient of two iHeart Radio Podcast Awards for her work on Forever35. Her work has been published by the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, InStyle, Esquire, and Cosmopolitan. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two daughters.

Get your seats on EVENTBRITE!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Thursday the 23^rd

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

Tom Sturges will present and discussO Brother, What Might Have Been.

What Might Have Been opens a hidden door into the creative world of Preston Sturges, one of the great originals of American cinema, the trailblazing writer-director whose comedies The Lady Eve, Sullivan’s Travels and The Palm Beach Story brought a new sophistication to Hollywood in the early 1940s. This remarkable volume gathers three unproduced screenplays that span the breadth of his career-scripts that were written with the same verve, wit, and satiric brilliance as his best-known films, but which never made it to the screen.

In Song of Joy (1936), Sturges crafts a razor-sharp satire of the movie business and its manic machinery, channeling his frustrations with studio absurdity into a vibrant, madcap tale of mistaken identity, opera stars and clueless executives. This previously lost link between The Good Fairy and Easy Living reveals the moment when Sturges truly found his comic voice.

Nothing Doing (1949) finds Sturges returning to one of his favorite conceits: the reinvention of a man adrift. Here, a high-powered tycoon retreats to a small town under doctor’s orders, only to rebuild its economy and rediscover himself. With echoes of Sullivan’s Travels and The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, Sturges grapples with success, exhaustion and post-war America in a story that blends slapstick with soul-searching.

In The Millionairess (1953-54), Sturges adapts George Bernard Shaw’s social comedy into a lively, visually inventive screenplay originally intended for Katharine Hepburn. The result is a richly cinematic transformation that deepens Shaw’s characters and sharpens the romantic tension, while offering Sturges’ signature mix of verbal fireworks, comic montage, and offbeat heart.

With a foreword by Sturges’ son Tom and annotated with rich, illuminating introductory essays by Jay Rozgonyi, What Might Have Been is a poignant, hilarious, and revelatory glimpse into the mind of one of American cinema’s greatest comic artists. A gift to cinephiles and a reminder of the dazzling energy and human insight that made Sturges a legend, it is also a loving act of restoration, a chance, at last, to read what he might have filmed—if only the world had let him.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Thursday the 23^rd

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Brandie June spent most of her childhood on stage or reading, as both activities let her live in fantastic stories. She moved to Los Angeles to study acting at UCLA, and eventually branched out into costume design, playwriting, prose, and got MBA in Entertainment Marketing, becoming the Marketing Director for Kids & Family Entertainment at Shout! Studios. She will present and discuss Magic at the Grand Dragonfly Theater.

The authors will be in conversation with Emma R. Alban.

A book signing will follow the discussion.

RSVP: Ticketed event

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Thursday the 23^rd

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

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

At Skylight: Susan Straight & Sacrament at Skylight – In-Person Event

Susan Striaght willpresent and discuss Sacrament, a captivating new novel about a group of nurses fighting through the first year of a pandemic and the beloved California community they will risk their lives to protect. This a sequel to her previous novel, Mecca.

In August 2020, a group of nurses are working in the ICU at a hospital in San Bernardino at the height of a Covid surge: Larette Embers, whose husband, Grief, is an animal control officer; Cherrise Martinez, whose husband died years ago in a car crash, and whose daughter Raquel has been sent to a Coachella date farm to live with her great-aunt to avoid the virus; and Marisol Manalang, born in the Philippines but based in Sacramento. To safeguard their families, the nurses are living in a makeshift RV camp close to the hospital; they share food and cigarettes yet keep their work private. For this is a country in crisis, and they are assisting strangers at the edge of death with infinite tenderness and growing desperation.

As these nurses struggle with the skyrocketing number of sick patients, Cherisse’s daughter goes missing. Grief’s friend Johnny Frias, a California Highway Patrol officer, joins the search to find her, and the resulting journey leads to new love and loss, pushing all our characters to their breaking points. Brilliantly highlighting both the quiet heroism and extraordinary bravery of first responders, Sacrament once again proves that Susan Straight is the “essential voice in American writing and in writing of the West” (The New York Times).

Susan Straight has published nine novels, including Mecca, A Million Nightingales, and Highwire Moon, and one memoir, In the Country of Women. She’s been a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the National Book Award, among other honors, and received the Lannan Prize, the O. Henry Award, the Edgar Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement from the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. Her fiction has been translated into ten languages. She was born in Riverside, California, where she lives with her family.

Where: Skylight

Date: Thursday, the 23^rd

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-susan-straight-presents-sacrament

Blast Bones Zine Launch + Dead Poets Open Mic & Costume Contest at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Livestream Hybrid Event

The Halloween season is upon us! Celebrate with Blast Bones, sign up for the open mic, and dress up as your favorite dead poet!

Inspired by horror movies and sexual awakenings, Blastbones Zine is a wailing skeleton on fire. Join us for the launch, featuring poetry sets from poets in Bakersfield and Los Angeles including Mateo Perez Lara, Shelby Pinkham, Mylo Lam, CJ Wheelan, and you! In addition to the main features, we’re having a horrific open mic! We encourage you to come dressed up as your favorite dead poet/author and read a piece from them or in their poetic style or simply come as you aren’t! The winner of the best costume will receive a treat from the bookstore!

Limited copies of Blastbones Zine will be available at our bookstore! Featuring 20 contributors and the winners of the Bakersfield Poetry Contest, 2025.

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Thursday, the 23^rd

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

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

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/blast-bones-zine-launch-dead-poets-open-mic-costume-contest-tickets-1612753943459?aff=oddtdtcreator

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

Our most popular story time is ready to delight and dazzle! This is also the prime time to see Pippi Longstocking, our bookstore cat in action.

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

Free to attend.

NOTE: Free to attend.

Where: Once Upon a Time, Montrose

Date: Friday, the 24^th

Time: 9:30 am

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/2025-10-24/weekly-pj-story-time

Book Club: Mexican Gothic at La Mirada Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno Garcia.

After receiving a frantic letter from her newlywed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find. For adults.

Where: La Mirada Library, LACL

Date: Friday the 24^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14619143

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

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

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

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Friday the 24^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com

Writing Gets Lonely at Heavy Manners Library – In-Person Event

Join us for an Open Writing Studio, Writing Gets Lonely.

No frills, No Prompts, Just Write.

RSVP at Website

Where: Heavy Manners Library

Date: Friday the 24^th

Time: 1 pm – 3 pm

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

Website: https://heavymannerslibrary.com/events/writing-gets-lonely-open-writing-studio-10-24

Horror Book Club: The Parliament at Compton Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka.

To borrow a print copy of the books, please contact the Compton Library directly. For Ages 18+

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

Madigan Purdy is stuck in her home-town library. When tens of thousands of owls descend on the building, rending and tearing at anyone foolish enough to step outside, Mad is tasked with keeping her students safe, and distracted, while they seek a solution to their dilemma. Perhaps they’ll find the inspiration they seek in her favorite childhood book, The Silent Queen.

With food and fresh water in low supply, the denizens of the library will have to find a way out, and soon, but the owls don’t seem to be in a hurry to leave. The Parliament is a story of grief and missed opportunities, but also of courage and hope. And of extremely sharp beaks.

Attendance is limited, and advance registration is required. This will be used to save your spot in the program. We cannot guarantee availability for any unregistered adult. To sign up, see library staff, or register online at Visit.LACountyLibrary.org/Events and filter by location or event date.

Where: Compton Library, LACL

Date: Friday the 24^th

Time: 4 pm – 5 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14583122

WeHo Sci-Fi Book Club: Dune at West Hollywood Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Are you a fan of robots, aliens, dystopian worlds, or science gone astray? If so, you should join the WeHo Sci-Fi book club! For adults.

For this month’s meeting, we’ll be reading: Dune by Frank Herbert.

Please contact the library to get a print copy of the book. No registration required.

This program will be held in the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Room.

Where: West Hollywood Library, LACL

Date: Friday the 24^th

Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14577931

Cellar Door Bookstore at Mundial Coffee Market Night – In-Person Event

Celebrate Dia De Los Muertos Market Night at Cellar Door Bookstore.

Enjoy live Mariachi and face painting.

Shop small and support 20+ local vendors.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore Off-site

Date: Friday the 24^th

Time: 5 pm – 9 pm

Address: 1725 Spruce St., Riverside, CA 92507

Website https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/cellar-door-bookstore-mundial-coffee-market-night

Open Mic Night Every Friday Night at The Den Café, Santa Ana – In-Person Event

See you for a night of local talent, food, coffee and cocktails at The Den Cafe. A stage that’s been a home for OC’s artist since 1999.

Sign-ups start at 5:30 with @rodharrison66.

Music starts at 6 pm

Spoken word and poetry are welcome!

Where: The Den Café

Date: Friday the 24^th

Time: 6 pm (Doors at 5:30 pm)

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Book Launch: Hope Cerna & Sentimental Garden at Private Location, Arleta – In-Person Event

Celebrate the debut poetry launch of Sentimental Garden, with author Hope Cerna and other amazing poets for a night of poetry, music, and refreshments. And a raffle with great prizes too!

Enjoy pan dulce, Cafecito, a raffle, and inspiring poetry.

If you preordered for pick up, you can pick up your book at this event. If you ordered shipping, keep an eye out for a notification of when your book has shipped.

So excited to get this book out there! See you there!

Where: Private location

Date: Friday the 24^th

Time: 6:30 pm (Doors at 6 pm)

Address: 13625 Sunburst St., Arleta, CA 91331

Since the age of seven, Christian has been under the thumb of a curse. He reads its dark signs everywhere: in his bedridden mother’s wilting plants; in his brother’s estrangement; in his father’s eager fists and glassy stare. He reads it in his nightmares, in Stockton’s soundtrack of sirens and gunshots. Above all, he reads the curse in the mirror, watching himself “turn” into the crow his father always predicted he’d become.

Maddened by the city’s heatwaves and his own unthinkable desires, often high and drunk, Christian rips through his neighborhood, desperate to escape not only the city but the monster of his pain. But even when he leaves, the curse follows. Can Christian ever be absolved? Or is he condemned to be consumed by the same violence as his father?

And I’ll Take Out Your Eyes is a defiant, shattering portrait of self-discovery in the face of violence, mental illness, and other dark inheritances. In a lyric, circuit-bending onslaught of ragers and laments, A. M. Sosa delivers a redemptive story—and an unforgettable debut.

A. M. Sosa (they/them) is a queer Mexican American writer from Stockton, CA, and a graduate of UC Irvine’s MFA Programs in Writing where they were awarded the 2022 Henfield Prize. They have received support from Tin House, Community of Writers, and the Carolyn Moore Writing Residency. Their debut novel, And I’ll Take Out Your Eyes, has recently been released by Algonquin, and their fiction has been published in Zyzzyva and the Santa Monica Review.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Friday the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2025-10-24/am-sosa-discusses-signs-and-ill-take-out-your-eyes

Book Event: Alexandria Bellefleur, with Falon Ballard, & The Devil She Knows at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Alexandria Bellefleur, in conversation with Falon Ballard, will discuss her new romance novel, The Devil She Knows.

A book signing will follow the discussion.

RSVP: Ticketed event

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Friday the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

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

At Skylight: Hayley Dennings, with Dahlia De La Vega, & Our Vicious Descent at Skylight – In-Person Event

Hayley Dennings, in conversation with Dahia De La Vega, willpresent and discuss our Vicious Descent, the stunning conclusion to the bestselling Ravenous Fate duology, Elise Saint and Layla Quinn must discover the truths behind an alluring poison and the monstrous new presence ravaging New York City.

In 1927, shocking upheavals rocked Harlem’s most powerful factions and left Elise Saint estranged from the reaper she loves, Layla Quinn. The Saint family empire is in decline, gangster-run blood houses peddle debauchery, and a dangerous reaper-venom drug has become all the rage with wealthy thrill-seekers. Elise is desperate to find her beloved little sister, Josi, who has gone missing in the chaos. Meanwhile, Layla contends with shifting alliances in the New York underworld, including Karine, an ancient reaper, and the gangster Nicoletta—both with scores to settle.

And then a terrifying new threat emerges: a beast making swift, murderous rampages through the city, keeping to darkness while hunting reapers and humans alike. Layla and Elise are joined in purpose when they suspect the monster’s origins are related to a far deeper mystery that involves Josi, Karine, and a disquieting new future for reapers. Soon, they will risk everything to unearth these secrets, where the shadowy boundaries between the dead and the living are even more treacherous than they imagined.

Hayley Dennings loves stories centered on queer female characters. A recent graduate from Loyola Marymount University, she discusses books and writing on her Pages of Hayley YouTube channel. Seeing people like her represented in books encouraged her to write her own books and pursue publishing. She currently resides in the Bay Area, working as an editorial and marketing associate. When Hayley is not working, she is spending time with her dogs, reading, painting, and baking.

Dahlia De La Vega is the LA-based content creator and interviewer behind ofpagesandprint on social media. She is a voracious reader and audiobook devourer and created ofpagesandprint to support fantasy, romance, and YA authors. She can be found moderating book events at bookstores and conventions across Southern California; hosting her monthly book club, Musings of the Nine; and chatting about her favorite reads on Instagram.

Where: Skylight

Date: Friday, the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Where: Underdog Bookstore

Date: Friday the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 312 South Myrtle Avenue, Monrovia, CA, 91016

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

Book Event: Liz Parker, with Rebekah Faubion, & Witches of Honeysuckle House at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Liz Parker, in conversation with Rebekah Faubion, will discuss her new novel, Witches of Honeysuckle House.

Haunted by a curse that kills someone close to their family every thirteen years, two sisters must come together to break the spell and save that which they hold most dear.

This enchanting novel explores the fraught lines between family and the secrets they keep, perfect for fans of Ava Morgyn and Heather Webber.

Florence and Evie Caldwell have long disagreed on how to break their family’s curse, and tension has been high since their mother’s death thirteen years ago. Honeysuckle House, the family estate where every Caldwell has lived, now only houses one of the sisters. Evie has crafted it into an enchanted bed and breakfast while Florence runs a magical bookstore in town, refusing to even set foot inside Honeysuckle House.

But when the house starts behaving dangerously and catches fire, Florence and Evie must set aside their differences and dig into past generations of their family and the town’s history before the curse claims someone they love.

Witches of Honeysuckle House is an exploration of sisterhood, family, and the places we call home, perfect for readers who love the darker aspects of Weyward and the sister dynamics of The Crescent Moon Tearoom.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Friday the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-10-24/liz-parker-conversation-rebekah-faubion-discusses-signs-witches-honeysuckle-house

L.A. Double Book Launch: An Evening with What Books Press and Giant Claw at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Livestream Hybrid Event

Join us to celebrate the release of new books by Judith Pacht & Erik Manuel Soto and additional readings by Katherine Haake and Chuck Rosenthal.

Two new collections of poetry:

Erik Manuel Soto’s poetry collection, Inside the Umber Iris, traverses the realm of the subconscious and mythology, tying a lyrical and surrealist style with themes of generational trauma and folkloric genealogy.

Judith Pacht’s poetry collection, Precarious, asks the reader to consider their own personal struggles with morality. At every turn we face challenges inside, outside. Many are precarious.

Authors Katharine Haake and Chuck Rosenthal will also be joining to present new work in The Wanda Coleman Theater.

Erik Manuel Soto is a Mexican American writer from California. His poems have appeared in Volt, Huizache, Sonora Review, and other magazines and publications. Winner of the inaugural Gronk Nicandro first book prize for poetry, Erik debuts his full-length poetry collection, Inside the Umber Iris, in Fall 2025.

Judith Pacht’s book Summer Hunger won the 2011 PEN Southwest Book Award for Poetry. Her books include Infirmary for a Private Soul and five chapbooks. A three-time Pushcart nominee, Pacht was first place winner in the Georgia Poetry Society’s Edgar Bowers competition. Her work appears in numerous anthologies and journals such as Ploughshares, Runes, Nimrod and Phoebe. Her poems have been translated into Russian where they were published in Foreign Literature (Moscow, Russia).

Katharine Haake is the author, most recently, of the post-world fable, What Happened Was. A book of essays, The Heaviness of Ghosts, won the Wolfson Press Prize and will be published in 2026. Other books include an eco-dystopian science fiction novel, a California hybrid prose lyric, and three collections of stories. Her work has appeared broadly in literary journals and been recognized as distinguished by Best American Fiction and Best American Essays, among others. She is a professor emerita of creative writing at California State University, Northridge.

Chuck Rosenthal has published 20 books, fifteen of them novels including the recent Awake For Ever in a Sweet Unrest. His novel in progress is The Author of This Planet, about Planet IX. He plans to read from that.

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

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Friday, the 24^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/la-double-book-launch-an-evening-with-what-books-press-giant-claw-tickets-1612745117059?aff=oddtdtcreator

Book Event: Brynne Weaver’s Tourist Season at The Open Book, Topanga – In-Person Event

Join us for a night of chilling fun on Friday, October 24th, from 8 pm to 10 pm, for A Taste of Carnage: Tourist Season Book Bash!

Tickets are limited to 20 guests, so grab yours soon! Head to our Linktree for the Eventbrite link and full event details.

Ticketed event. Author not present.

Where: The Open Book, Topanga

Date: Friday the 24^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Join us for The Poetry Brothel LA’s Moonlight Manor Halloween Extravaganza event.

A haunted speakeasy where poets summon your innermost demons and delights.

Ticketed event. RSVP

Where: Sassafras Saloon

Date: Friday the 24^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm (Doors at 7 pm)

Vintage VINYL RECORDS FUNDRAISER is back!!!

Each record is $5 each, $45 for 10 or take a whole box for $200!

✊🏽50/50 SPLIT WILL HELP LIBROMOBILE STAY OPEN & SUPPORT FAMILIES IMPACTED BY🧊!

RSVP

Where: LibroMobile Bookstore

Date: Saturday, the 25^th

Time: 9 am – 5 pm

Address: 222 W. 5^th St., Santa Ana, CA 92704

Website: https://www.libromobile.com/event-details/vintage-vinyl-records-fundraiser-1

Book Club for Middle Grade Readers: Refugee via Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person MG Event

Participants will discuss the October selection, Refugee by Alan Gratz.

RSVP:

For more information email gkim@lapl.org for the Zoom link.

Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday, the 25^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

Address: Online Event

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-middle-grade-readers-refugee-alan-gratz

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

Participants will discuss the October selection, The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark.

Struggling ghostwriter Olivia Dumont returns home to pen her estranged father’s final book, only to discover he’s finally ready to reveal the truth about the night his siblings were murdered, forcing her to confront long-buried family secrets and the ghosts that still haunt them.

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

Date: Saturday, the 25^th

Time: 10:30 am – 12 pm

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

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

Books and Cookies Saturday Story and Song Party at Children’s Book World – In-Person Event

Join Books and Cookies to read, sing, learn and connect!

At our high energy, interactive story time events, we bring books to life through movement, music, instrument and parachute play and more!

New Yorker cartoonist Matthew Diffee signs his hilarious new picture book, Zip Zap Wickety Wack: A Story About Sharing.

New Yorker cartoonist Matthew Diffee makes his children’s book debut with Zip Zap Wickety Wack, a laugh-out-loud twist on the classic animal sound book. The author’s hilarious wit will be an immediate hit with young readers in his first picture book. Sure to inspire boisterous read-alouds and threaded with a sneaky message about sharing, Zip Zap Wickety Wack will inspire new nonsense and new values in homes, classrooms, and farmyards around the world.

Matthew Diffee has been contributing cartoons to The New Yorker since 1999. Diffee was recently named Chairman of the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society. He grew up in Texas, and now lives in Los Angeles. His debut picture book is Zip Zap Wickety Wack.

Where: Children’s Book World

Date: Saturday the 25^th

Time: 10:30 pm

Address: 10580 ½ W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday, the 25^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

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

LIWANAG LIT FEST 2025 at Michelle Obama Library, LBPL – In-Person Event

Liwanag Lit Fest 2025 returns Saturday, October 25th!

Highlighting Filipinx stories and literature, in honor of Filipino American History Month, and presented by Long Beach Public Library and Bel Canto Books.

Featuring: Children’s, Young Adult & Adult Readings, Panel Discussions, Workshops, Arts & Crafts, Book Signings, Vendor Market, Pan de Sal Reception, and more!

See website to access complete schedule, author events, and details.

Where: Michelle Obama Library, Long Beach PL

Date: Saturday, the 25^th

Time: 11 am – 5 pm

Address: 5870 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach, CA 90805 (Free parking)

Website: https://belcantobooks.net/liwanag

A Special Author Luncheon at RYLA with Joanne Lee Molinaro & Korean Vegan at pages Off-site at RYLA – In-Person Event

THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT. Call the store at 310-318-0900 to join the waitlist.

Join a luncheon with New York Times Bestselling author and James Beard Award Winner Joanne Lee Molinaro celebrating the publication of her new cookbook, Korean Vegan: Homemade – Recipes and Stories From My Kitchen on Saturday, October 25th at 11:00 am at RYLA in Hermosa Beach.

Tickets are $115 and include a special vegan luncheon at RYLA and a signed copy of Korean Vegan: Homemade: Recipes and Stories From My Kitchen.

In Korean Vegan: Homemade, she presents the meals she makes most often in her own kitchen, blending cultural influences with plant-based ingenuity. With stunning photography, tips for building a Korean pantry, and a wealth of deeply personal stories, this is a heartfelt tribute to the magical connections between family, home, and food.

Ray Hayashi and Cynthia Hetlinger are the husband and wife chef duo behind RYLA in Hermosa Beach. The two have worked their way through several acclaimed Los Angeles restaurants over the years. They will present a vegan featuring from one of Joanne’s own recipes for this special event.

RSVP for further information.

Where: pages Off-site at RYLA

Date: Saturday the 25^th

Time: 11 am – 12:30 pm

Address: 1220 Heremosa Ave., Hermosa Beach, CA 90254

This October 25, we welcome author Sibylle Westbrook for a reading of her picture book The Bridge Between Kingdoms.

The Bridge Between Kingdoms is a fairy tale about the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing near Los Angeles, California. When a young mountain lion tries to establish his own territory, he faces the Giant Growling Snake his mother warned him about. With the help of a bat, he discovers that he is brave enough to leap into a hopeful future.

Sibylle Westbrook was born and raised in Germany. She holds a BA in Language Arts and worked as a freelance translator and interpreter for many years with assignments all over Europe. Since moving to California to marry her husband she has raised her family, taught German to young children, worked in Avantgarde fashion and pursued philanthropic interests. She is currently a volunteer docent at the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing. She currently lives in Los Angeles.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Saturday the 25^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/3715420251025

Book Event: Cassandra Federman & Gray Squirrel Loses It at Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event

Cassandra Federman will read from, and sign Gray Squirrel Loses It. There will also be a drawing activity.

Gray Squirrel has a problem. He can’t find his nut, and he’s desperate for help. So desperate that he’s going to interrupt this autumnal tour of the forest, where cardinals eat berries that turn their feathers red, white-tailed deer lose their antlers, and wood frogs freeze…Yeah, all of that might be fascinating, but Squirrel needs his nut!

With a funny, exasperated hero like that of The Very Impatient Caterpillar, this meta picture book inspired by real squirrel behavior (caching!) delivers crowd-pleasing laughs as Gray Squirrel searches for his beloved nut and accidentally plants a tree. But this isn’t the first lost nut, and it won’t be the last…Hello, forest!

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Saturday the 25^th

Time: 11 am

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

Ages 6-13.

Where: The Book Jewel

Date: Saturday the 25^th

Time: 12 pm

Join us to discuss I Almost Forgot About You, by Terry McMillan.

Dr. Georgia Young’s wonderful life aren’t enough to keep her content. Upon making some major changes she finds herself on a wild journey that may or may not include a second chance at love.

Where: Virtual Program, LACL

Date: Saturday, the 25^th

Time: 1 pm – 2 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14650769

Book Launch: The Secret of the Sapphire Sentinel at Underdog Bookstore, Monrovia – In-Person Event

Join us to celebrate the book launch of The Secret of the Sapphire Sentinel by Jendia Gammon, writing as J. Dianne Dotson, which is the sequel to the Nebula and BSFA Award finalist The Inn at the Amethyst Lantern. This is the second book of a trilogy.

In the twilight world of Glimmerbight, fourteen-year-old Gen Lightworth dreams of restoring the Inn at the Amethyst Lantern. But an ancient evil’s lingering scars awaken new threats from unexpected corners.

Summoned by the mysterious Gallant Twilight Society, a network of heroic animals, Gen journeys beneath the waves into hidden lairs pulsing with bioluminescent secrets. With her loyal team, the Fireflies, she confronts lost legacies, mutated monsters, and shadowy figures from the past.

When a vibrant yet unsettling new apothecary arrives, secrets multiply and trust frays. And as danger closes in, Gen learns the true weight of leadership and the strength of friendship.

Where: Underdog Bookstore

Date: Saturday the 25^th

Time: 1 pm – 2 pm

Address: 312 South Myrtle Avenue, Monrovia, CA, 91016

Journey through the world of California native bees, one letter at a time.

National Geographic Explorer Krystle Hickman has spent a decade capturing exquisitely detailed photographs of nativebees and making exciting discoveries about their behavior in the field. In her debut book of natural history, she offers an intimate look at the daily habits of rare and overlooked native bees in California: those cloaked in green or black or red, that live alone in the ground or sleep inside flowers, that invade nests and pillage resources like infinitesimal conquerors, or that, unlike more generalist honeybees, are devoted exclusively to the pollen of a single type of flower. A committed conservationist and community scientist who knows all too well how precarious the wellbeing of these insects is, Hickman shares her adventures in local native plant gardens and throughout the far reaches of California to bring the beauty of such diverse ecosystems into wondrous bee’s-eye view. Meant for all curious readers, this collection of bee stories—one for each letter of the alphabet, matching the first letter of a bee’s scientific name—will leave you both wowed and compelled to help save these fascinating beings and the lands they call home.

RSVP

Where: Vroman’s Off-site at Arlington Garden

Date: Saturday the 25^th

Time: 1 pm – 2 pm

Address: 275 Arlington Drive, Pasadena, CA 91105

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-10-25/arlington-gardens-krystle-hickman

Zine Making Workshop with Darrell Fusaro at Malabar Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us as we create our own original Zines!

Zines are self-published works of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via photocopier. Zine topics can include poetry, photos, cartoons, fan fiction, bios, essays, politics, short stories, drawings, collage, paintings, recipes, interviews, “how to” guides, etc. Participants are taken through a simple step-by-step, follow-along demonstration of making an 8-page booklet from a single sheet of standard 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper.

Original Zines created in this workshop will be considered for the new Malabar Library Zine collection!

No registration required.

Where: Malabar Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday, the 25^th

Time: 2 pm

Address: 2801 Wabash Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90033

Experience a lively scene reading from His Girl Friday performed by Amy Marcs and Jeff, followed by Frank Strasser and Ginger O’Toole presenting memorable moments from Chinatown. Judd Angel, Sue Gisser, and Sandra Cruze will bring The Big Sleep to life on stage, while Suzy Williams and Tuba Heatherton perform the playful duet “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better. Brad Kay will share his witty parody When I Was a Lad from Hollywood Pinafore, and Suzy Williams will also perform her original song Hollow Hollywood. Curated and hosted by Eric Vollmer.

An artists’ reception with refreshments will follow the performance.

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Saturday, the 25^th

Time: 2 pm – 4 pm

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

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/voice-in-the-well-presents-chinatown-revisited-tickets-1612746009729?aff=oddtdtcreator

Fourth Saturdays Poetry Reading: Chiwan Choi and Nicelle Davis at Claremont Helen Renwick Library – In-Person Event

Join Poetry at the Claremont Library this month to hear readings from featured guests: Chiwan Choi and Nicelle Davis.

Chiwan Choi is the author of five books of poetry: The Flood, the Daughter trilogy (Abductions, The Yellow House, and my name is wolf), and Sky Songs. He wrote, presented, and destroyed the novel Ghostmaker throughout the course of 2025. His writing has appeared in New York Time Magazine, ONTHEBUS, Zocolo Public Square, and other publications. Chiwan is a partner in the experimental laboratory Writ Large Projects.

Nacelle Davis is a California poet, collaborator, and performance artist. Her poetry collections include The Language of Fractions, The Walled Wife, In the Circus of You, Becoming Judas, and Circe. Her poetry film collaborations have been shown across the world. She has taught poetry through many organizations and currently teaches middle school in the High Desert.

Note: Saturday, Oct 25 is also the day of Village Venture, an annual craft fair in downtown Claremont. Parking will be impacted and streets near the library will be closed to traffic, so be sure to plan ahead and arrive early!

Where: Claremont Helen Renwick Library, Claremont

Date: Saturday, the 25^th

Time: 2 pm – 4 pm

Address: 208 N. Harvard Ave., Claremont, 91711

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

Miriam’s Garden Poetry Reading Event: Eve Luckering, D.T West & VOTH at Hyde Park Miriam Matthews Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join host, poet and librarian Yago Cura to welcome October’s featured readers to Miriam’s Garden for a poetry reading.

Eve Luckering @thetenderbetweenis a writer, scholar, and cultural organizer from Chicago. She is the award-winning author, most recently, of Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism, an instant New York Times and USA Today bestseller. She has also published the poetry collections Electric Arches and 1919, the nonfiction work Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side, and a novel for young readers, Maya and the Robot. She is the co-author (with Nate Marshall) of the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks.

D.T. West is an author and founder of Angel City Publishing.

V.O.T.H. (Voice of the Harbor) @voth_94_ #poetrycommunity #poetrylovers #poesía #losangeles #losangelespubliclibrary #cd8 #parkmesaheights. VOTH is the author of Dieagnosis, is a collection of poetry based on a journey of self-discovery, working through the traumas and the struggles of being a Gay Latino in an impacted religious society.

Where: Hyde Park Miriam Matthews Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday the 25^th

Time: 2:30 pm – 4 pm

Readings by Laura Daniels and Jeanne Marie Spicuzza + Poets published in Four Feathers Press online edition: Too Hot.

Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.

Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry

Date: Saturday, the 25^th

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event

Website: https://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com

Historical Fiction Book Club: The Lilac People: A Novel at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss The Lilac People: A Novel by Milo Todd.

A moving and deeply humane story about a trans man who must relinquish the freedoms of prewar Berlin to survive first the Nazis then the Allies, all while protecting the ones he loves.

In 1932 Berlin, a trans man named Bertie and his friends spend carefree nights at the Eldorado Club, the epicenter of Berlin’s thriving queer community. An employee of the renowned Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld at the Institute of Sexual Science, Bertie works to improve queer rights in Germany and beyond. But everything changes when Hitler rises to power. The Institute is raided, the Eldorado is shuttered, and queer people are rounded up. Bertie barely escapes with his girlfriend, Sofie, to a nearby farm. There they take on the identities of an elderly couple and live for more than a decade in isolation.

In the final days of the war, with their freedom in sight, Bertie and Sofie find a young trans man collapsed on their property, still dressed in Holocaust prison clothes. They vow to protect him—not from the Nazis, but from the Allied forces who are arresting queer prisoners while liberating the rest of the country. Ironically, as the Allies’ vise grip closes on Bertie and his family, their only salvation is to flee to the United States.

Milo Todd is a Massachusetts Cultural Council grantee and a Lambda Literary Fellow. His work has appeared in Slice Magazine and elsewhere. He is co–editor in chief of Foglifter and teaches creative writing to queer and trans adults.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Saturday the 25^th

Time: 5 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/historical-fiction-book-club-lilac-people

Costume Contest, Pumpkin Carving & Open Mic via Nervous Ghost Press – Online Event

HALLOW-SCREEN is back! 🎃 👻

Costume contest and pumpkin carving!

Be there or be scared!

Open mic 🎙️ begins at 6:30 pm.

Featuring Community Guest Emcee: Shaun Anderson @beastman_anderson.

Sign up @ nervousghostpress.org

Where: Nervous Ghost Press

Date: Saturday, the 25^th

Time: 5 pm & 6:30 pm

Join an interactive presentation about the Raina Telgemeier and Scott McCloud book The Cartoonists Club that is focused on inspiring kids to write and draw their own stories. After the presentation there will be an opportunity to meet the presenters for a special photo-op.

The Cartoonists Club is a one-of-a-kind friendship story about creativity and self-expression that blends how-to and comics magic. Welcome to the club!

Makayla is bursting with ideas but doesn’t know how to make them into a story. Howard loves to draw, but he struggles to come up with ideas and his dad thinks comics are a waste of time. Lynda constantly draws in her sketchbook but keeps focusing on what she feels are mistakes, and Art simply loves being creative and is excited to try something new. They come together to form The Cartoonists Club, where kids can learn about making comics and use their creativity and imagination for their own storytelling adventures!

Raina Telgemeier is the #1 New York Times bestselling, multiple Eisner Award-winning creator of Smile, Sisters, and Guts, which are all graphic memoirs based on her childhood. She is also the creator of Drama and Ghosts, the adapter and illustrator of the first four Baby-sitters Club graphic novels, and, with Scott McCloud, the cocreator of The Cartoonists Club. Facing Feelings: Inside the World of Raina Telgemeier is based on an exhibition that was held at The Ohio State University’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. Raina lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. To learn more, visit her online at goraina.com.

Scott McCloud is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art; Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels; Zot!; and The Sculptor. He is also, with Raina Telgemeier, the cocreator of The Cartoonists Club. Scott is a frequent lecturer on the power of visual communication and creator of the international 24-Hour Comics Day. In 2021, he was inducted into the Will Eisner Awards Hall of Fame. Scott lives with his family in Oregon. His art and stories are available in more than thirty languages and on the web at scottmccloud.com.

NOTE: Tickets & Details at website link.

Where: Off-site at Glendale Performing Arts Center at Glendale High School

Date: Saturday, the 25^th

Time: 6 pm

Address: 1440 East Broadway, Glendale, CA 91205

Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/cartoonists-club-book-tour

Memoir Launch: Andrea Leeb & Such a Pretty Picture at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Join us for the launch of Such a Pretty Picture, a memoir by Andrea Leeb.

Andrea Leeb, in conversation with author Elle Johnson, will walk us through the experience of writing this “moving memoir of trauma with an uplifting conclusion” (Kirkus Reviews)

This book is a candid and heart-wrenching memoir about child abuse, family secrets, and the healing that begins once the truth is revealed and the past is confronted.

Andrea is four and a half the first time her father, David, gives her a bath. Although she is young, she knows there is something strange about the way he is touching her. When her mother, Marlene, walks in to check on them, she howls and crumples to the floor—and when she opens her eyes, she is blind. Marlene’s hysterical blindness lasts for weeks, but her willful blindness lasts decades. The abuse continues, and Andrea spends a childhood living with a secret she can’t tell and a shame she is too afraid to name.

Despite it, she survives. She builds a life and tells herself she is fine. But at age thirty-three, an unwanted grope on a New York City subway triggers her past. Suddenly unable to remember how to forget, Andrea is forced to confront her past—and finally begin to heal.

This brave debut offers honest insight into a survivor’s journey. Readers will feel Andrea’s pain, her fear, and her shame—yet they will also feel her hope. And like Andrea, they will come to understand an important truth: though healing is complicated, it is possible to find joy and even grace in the wake of the most profound betrayals.

Andrea Leeb is a writer and advocate for survivors of sexual assault. She has an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars, and her work has been published in numerous literary journals. Previously, Andrea worked as an attorney and as a registered nurse. Such a Pretty Picture: A Memoir is her first full length book.

Elle Johnson is a TV Writer and Executive Producer whose credits include Bosch, Law and Order, and CSI: Miami. Her debut memoir, The Officer’s Daughter, was named one of People Magazine’s Best New Books of 2021 and The New York Times Book Review called it “immensely moving.”

Reserve your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Saturday the 25^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Saturday, the 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/la-double-book-launch-ramon-garcia-mariano-zaro-tickets-1740823934249

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 26^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

October Spooktacular Storytime at Chevalier’s – In-Person Event

Boo! We’re kicking off Halloween right with a very special SPOOKY themed storytime!

Join us as we are visited by author and actor, A.J. Locasto as he shares the story of his brand new Halloween themed book: SPOOPS!

Holly Hollowell is obsessed with all things Halloween, but to her dentist parents, Halloween just means candy which equals cavities, and they have never allowed Holly to play dress up with the rest of her friends.

But when her parents are away for a conference, magical creatures called SPOOPS emerge from gourds all over her house teaching her and her parents that the true meaning of Halloween isn’t all about the sweets.

Where: Chevalier’s

Date: Sunday the 26^th

Time: 11 am – 12:30 pm

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

Reserve your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Sunday the 26^th

Time: 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm

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

Knock, knock! Tío Ricky is in town and he needs his nephew Enrique’s help! He doesn’t speak any English, so his nephew has to translate for him at the store, the post office, and the bank. But speaking Spanish feels like such a chore…until Enrique finds himself in a situation where his bilingual skills become life-saving. Enrique soon discovers that speaking two languages isn’t just helpful–it’s powerful, and it can strengthen family ties in ways he never imagined. It’s a heartwarming story in English and Spanish that shows you don’t need a superhero cape to be a hero!

Date: Sunday the 26^th

Time: 1 pm – 2 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-10-26/lil-libros-maritere-r-bellas

Your Author Event: Pedro Iniguez & The Fib at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Lids & Family Event

Join us to meet Bram Stoker Award-winning author Pedro Iniguez, who will share his debut picture book, The Fib. Intended for ages 4 and up.

This program was made possible with the generous support of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles along with support from the Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund.

Where: Central Library, LAPL, Children’s Literature

Date: Sunday the 26^th

Time: 2 pm

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

A lawyer and her elderly great-aunt use their supernatural gifts to find a lost child in this “wild, wondrous novel about the magic that is singing all around us” (Julia Phillips, author of Disappearing Earth)—in the vein of The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina and La Hacienda.

If you call to the witches, they will come.

1943, El Paso, Texas: teenager Nena spends her days caring for the small children of her older sisters and longing for a life of adventure. The premonitions and fainting spells she has endured since childhood are getting worse, and Nena worries she’ll end up like the scary old curandera down the street. Nena prays for help, and when the mysterious Sister Benedicta arrives late one night, Nena follows her across the borders of space and time. In colonial Mexico, Nena grows into her power, finding love and learning that magic always comes with a price.

In the present day, Nena’s grandniece, Marta, balances a struggling legal aid practice with motherhood and the care of the now ninety-three-year-old Nena. When Marta agrees to help search for a daughter Nena left in the past, the two forge a fierce connection. Marta’s own supernatural powers emerge, awakening her to new possibilities that threaten the life she has constructed.

Luis Jaramillo is the author of The Witches of El Paso and the award-winning short story collection, The Doctor’s Wife. His writing has appeared in LitHub, BOMB Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, and other publications. He is an assistant professor of creative writing at The New School. He received an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and an MFA from The New School. Find out more at LuisJaramillo.com.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Sunday the 26^th

Time: 2 pm

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

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

La Palabra Poetry Reading Series at Avenue 50 Studio – In-Person Event

Join us at La Palabra Reading Series with host Pam Concepcion and feature VOTH.

Knowing what it’s like to be trapped by one’s own mental asylum, VOTH is on a road of enlightenment where he’s learned there’s more than one way to cope with the faces of trauma, to heal, and brings hope to the pain fear created. His debut collection of poetry, Dieagnosis, was published by Riot of Roses Publishing House in 2023.

Where: Avenue 50 Studio

Date: Sunday the 26^th

Time: 2 pm – 4 pm

Please Donate. Community is coming together to meet our fundraising goal of $1500. It will be beautiful gathering of poetry, food, and music.

WHAT IS THE MONEY FOR? To provide room & board for the poets. To provide meals for the poets and organizers. To provide transportation during the festival.

WHO IS AMADA LIBERTAD? Amada Libertad is the pen name of Leyla Quitana a guerillera in the Salvadoran Civil War. She wrote poems in secret and sent them to her mother. She was killed in combat in 1991, and her poems were published post mortem. The festival is meant to honor her revolutionary spirit and poetry.

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL. Poets donate their time and are not paid. Poets from over 20 countries have participated, primarily from Central America. The festival is free to all. The festival brings poetry to children and community who would not regularly have an opportunity to engage with poets. The festival centers LGBTQIA2S+. social justice, and indigeneity.

Where: East L.A. TBA

Date: Sunday the 26^th

Time: 3 pm – 9 pm

Angela Kinsey and Joshua Snyder will present and discuss You Can Make This: More Then 100 Family Favorite Recipes.

Angela and Josh have curated their most treasured dishes in this warmhearted collection of enticing recipes for home chefs at any skill level. These meals, sides, snacks, and treats are easy to make and even easier to enjoy.

Find your new favorite weeknight dinner (perhaps marinated skirt steak with chimichurri, or sheet pan chicken and steak fajitas) and discover the perfect soup or side to bring to your next potluck (maybe honey sriracha brussels sprouts, or lemon chicken soup with toasted orzo). Reimagine breakfast for a crowd (think bakery-style granola or the ultimate overnight French toast casserole) and wow your party guests with the perfect dip or appetizer (dig into irresistible Tex-Mex queso, or inimitable Frito chili pie). Angela and Josh have a cookie for every occasion (from cinnamon roll cookies to lemon meltaways to stacked s’mores brownie delights) and will take your cakes and cupcakes to the next level (slice up some gooey chocolate pudding cake, or nosh on lemon-filled cupcakes with toasted meringue). Not to mention muffins, salads, brownies, pies, and so much more to fill your plate.

Whether you’re looking for inspiration for tonight’s meal, planning ahead for holiday hosting, or hoping to whip up something special for a celebratory night in, Josh and Angela have a story and a recipe for you. And rest assured, with these simple, delicious, and foolproof recipes, you can make this!

Angela Kinsey is an actor best known for her work playing the feisty accountant, Angela Martin, on all nine seasons of the award-winning NBC sitcom The Office. She has starred in several Netflix original series, movies, and Hulu originals, and she is the coauthor of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Office BFFs. Angela currently co-runs the Ramble media company and cohosts the award-winning podcast Office Ladies with her best friend, Jenna Fischer. Angela’s favorite place to be is in the kitchen with her husband, Joshua Snyder. You can catch their cooking adventures on Baking with Josh and Ange on Instagram and Youtube. Find out more at BakingwithJoshandAnge.com.

Joshua Snyder is an actor and influencer. In 2016, he and Angela Kinsey launched the YouTube baking show Baking with Josh and Ange. Their brand has done content collaborations with companies including Whole Foods, Sunsweet, The Honey Board, Purina, and more. Josh loves cooking and baking for his family and wants you to know that if he can make a recipe so can you.

NOTE: Ticketed Event

Where: Deisel, A Bookstore

Date: Sunday the 26^th

Time: 3 pm

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

Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-10-26/angela-kinsey-and-joshua-snyder-meet-and-greet-signing-you-can-make-this

Zillennial Book Club: Never Whistle at Night at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology by Shane Hawk.

Featuring stories by:

Norris Black • Amber Blaeser-Wardzala • Phoenix Boudreau • Cherie Dimaline • Carson Faust • Kelli Jo Ford • Kate Hart • Shane Hawk • Brandon Hobson • Darcie Little Badger • Conley Lyons • Nick Medina • Tiffany Morris • Tommy Orange • Mona Susan Power • Marcie R. Rendon • Waubgeshig Rice • Rebecca Roanhorse • Andrea L. Rogers • Morgan Talty • D.H. Trujillo • Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. • Richard Van Camp • David Heska Wanbli Weiden • Royce K. Young Wolf • Mathilda Zeller

Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home.

Shane Hawk (enrolled Cheyenne-Arapaho, Hidatsa and Potawatomi descent) is a history teacher by day and a horror writer by night. He entered the horror scene with his first publication, Anoka: A Collection of Indigenous Horror, in October 2020. He lives in San Diego with his beautiful wife, Tori. Learn more by visiting shanehawk.com.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Sunday the 26^th

Time: 4 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/zillennial-book-club-never-whistle-night

LiveTalks LA Presents: An Afternoon with Tim Curry & Vagabond at Robert Frost Auditorium, Culver City – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Tim Curry, in conversation with Adam Felber, will present and discuss his memoir Vagabond.

With the upcoming 50th anniversary of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the 40th anniversary of Clue, there’s never been a better time for Tim to share his story with the world. Tim’s memoir, Vagabond, is a celebration of his life’s work, and a testament to his profound impact on the entertainment industry.

Tim Curry is an Emmy award-winning actor who’s worked in the entertainment industry for close to five decades. He is best known for his iconic roles in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Clue, It, The Pirates of Penzance, Spamalot, Hair, Home Alone 2, Muppet Treasure Island, and countless others.

Adam Felber is a writer, performer, and a regular panelist on NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.” He spent 11 season’s on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” and has written several screenplays and books, including the recent Confessions of a PuppetMaster (HarperCollins). He’s the co-host of the long-running podcast “Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone,” and the director/co-writer of the new eco-comedy YouTube series, “Unf***ing the Planet.”

NOTE: See website link for tickets and reprise online information.

Where: Robert Frost Auditorium

Date: Sunday the 26^th

Time: 4 pm

Address: 4401 Elenda St., Culver City, CA, 90230

Website: https://livetalksla.org/events/tim-curry/

Earth Seed Symposium Book Club: Daniel Clowes & The Reformatory at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss The Reformatory by Tananarive Due.

A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.

The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Sunday the 26^th

Time: 5 pm

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

Fourteen-year-old Kirby Renton is a gifted theatre kid who wants to fix things: his dad’s marriage, his younger brother’s epilepsy. When ten-year-old Baxter’s seizures start involving visits from “the lightning people,” who descend from the sky and show him strange symbols, Kirby knows he needs to protect his brother, but how? He thinks he’s found the answer when the neurologist advises his family to consider a seizure-alert dog, but the cost is too much for his family to afford.

Determined to raise the money himself, Kirby enlists his best friends and a crew of brilliant teens from his theatre troupe to put on a play in his epic forest of a backyard. At first, the play brings its own pressures as the drama between Kirby’s dads worsens and his fears for his brother intensify. But little does Kirby know of the magic that awaits him and his friends-and the portals that will open-from his daring to make a difference.

Tim Cummings is the author of the award-winning coming-of-age novel Alice the Cat. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and a BFA from NYU. He has appeared in more than 200 projects across theatre, dance, film, television, voice-over, and new media. Tim teaches writing for UCLA’s Writers’ Program, runs private workshops, and coaches authors. In addition to his passion for storytelling, Tim is an octopus and spider enthusiast. He goes wild for anything with eight legs. Learn more at http://www.timcummings.ink.

Having just completed a two-season arc on Criminal Minds: Evolution for Paramount+, Silas Weir Mitchell is probably best known for his six seasons starring as fan-favorite Monroe, the horologist Blutbad (aka BigBadWolf), on NBC’s hit series Grimm. Silas garnered much attention for his recurring role of Haywire in the critically-acclaimed FOX series Prison Break as well as for his wacky turn as Donny Jones in the NBC comedy My Name Is Earl.

Bree Turner is best known for her six-season run as Rosalee Calvert, the Fuchsbau apothecary on NBC’s acclaimed series Grimm. She has appeared in many feature films over her career including James Ponsoldt’s Smashed, The Ugly Truth alongside Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. She also co-starred in the box office hits Just My Luck, Deuce Bigalow, and Sorority Boys. Born and raised in Northern California, Turner came south to attend UCLA, where she actively pursued her passion for dance and theater. Bree is currently the co-host of The Grimmcast, a Grimm rewatch podcast produced by Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner for Apple.

Reserve your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Sunday the 26^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

October Historical Romance Book Club is led by orders manager Katie S. This group reads all historical romance titles, all eras, both new and old.

Participants will discuss Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Everyone is welcome.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Sunday the 26^th

Time: 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm

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

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