Danny Stone, a Saved by a Story member, leads an ongoing writing group for seniors. New members are welcome to attend all or any sessions.

Write to prompts, share (if you want), connect with fellow seniors in the neighborhood, hone your writing skills, and find your story.

See site for complete schedule.

RSVP:

An RSVP to studio@lapl.org is recommended but not required. If you RSVP we will send you a welcome packet, guidelines, and a reminder the day before the meeting.

Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 27^th

Time: 1 pm

Address: 12511 Moorpark Street, Studio City, CA 91604

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/senior-writing-group-2

October Fiction Book Club: Intermezzo at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Intermezzo by Sally Rooney.

After the death of their father, brothers Peter and Ivan Koubek must navigate their complicated love lives and personal struggles. Successful lawyer Peter dates both a financially dependent college student and his ex-girlfriend, while chess prodigy Ivan begins a passionate age-gap relationship with an older woman named Margaret. The novel explores themes of grief, love, family dynamics, and power structures through their entangled perspectives, focusing on the characters’ internal lives rather than a central plot.

Where: Chevalier’s Books

Date: Monday the 27^th

Time: 5 pm – 6:30 pm

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

Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2025-10-27/october-fiction-book-club

Creative Writing Class with Ryan at Mid-Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Come use your imagination to write stories, poems, and other creative things. We will learn new words and new ways to write. You will practice writing about your ideas and your feelings. This class is a good place to build your confidence and become a better writer in English. Supplies will be provided for free. No registration is required.

Please email midvalleyliteracy@lapl.org or call at 213-228-7037 for more information.

Where: Mid Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 27^th

Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: 16244 Nordhoff Street, North Hills, CA 91343

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

Queer Book Club: Mirage City at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Join participants to discuss Mirage City: An Evander Mills Mystery by Lev AC Rosen.

Private Investigator Evander “Andy” Mills’ next case takes him out of his comfort zone in San Francisco—and much to his dismay, back home to Los Angeles. After a secretive queer rights organization called the Mattachine Society enlists Andy to find some missing members, he must dodge not only motorcycle gangs and mysterious forces, but his own mother, too.

Avoiding her proves to be a challenge when the case leads Andy to the psychiatric clinic she works at. Worlds collide, buried secrets are dug up, and Andy realizes he’s going to have to make some hard choices. With secrets, drugs, and doctors swirling around him, time is running out for Andy to locate the missing and get them to safety. And for him to make it back to San Francisco in one piece.

Lev AC Rosen writes books for people of all ages, including the Evander Mills series, which began with the Macavity Award-winning Lavender House and continues with The Bell in the Fog and Rough Pages. His most recent young adult novels are Emmett, Lion’s Legacy, and Camp. Rosen’s books have been nominated for Anthony and Lambda Awards and have been selected for best-of lists from the Today show, Amazon, Library Journal, Buzzfeed, Autostraddle, Forbes, and many others. He lives in NYC with his husband and a very small cat.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Monday the 27^th

Time: 6 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/queer-book-club-mirage-city-0

Mar Vista Book Club: Books and Communi-Tea at Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

We welcome all readers to our book club; no sign up is required.

For each month’s title, please contact the branch. Copies of the book are available at the Reference Desk for check out.

Please note that the Mar Vista Book Club meets in person.

Where: Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 27^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

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

Sherman Oaks Book Club: Frankenstein at Sherman Oaks Martin Pollard Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event

Participants will discuss Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

D.L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf’s edition of Frankenstein has been widely acclaimed as an outstanding edition of the novel, for the general reader and the student as much as for the scholar. The editors use as their copy-text the original 1818 version, and detail in an appendix all of Shelley’s later revisions. They also include a range of contemporary documents that shed light on the historical context from which this unique masterpiece emerged.
New to this edition is a discussion of Percy Shelley’s role in contributing to the first draft of the novel. Recent scholarship has provoked considerable interest in the degree to which Percy Shelley contributed to Mary Shelley’s original text, and this edition’s updated introduction discusses this scholarship. A new appendix also includes Lord Byron’s A Fragment and John William Polidori’s The Vampyre, works that are engaging in their own right and that also add further insights into the literary context of Frankenstein.

RSVP:

Please email shrmno@lapl.org for the Zoom link.

Where: Sherman Oaks Martin Pollard Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 27^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/sherman-oaks-book-club-frankenstein-mary-shelley

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 27^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92501

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

An Evening with Elizabeth Gilbert & All the Way to the River at Book Soup Off-site at Saban Theatre – In-Person Event

Join us for an evening with bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, in celebration of her forthcoming memoir, All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, a deeply personal exploration of healing, transformation, and the courage it takes to begin again.

In this one-night-only event, Elizabeth will share exclusive excerpts, behind-the-scenes insights, and the heartfelt stories that shaped her latest work.

Elizabeth Gilbert is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the novels City of Girls, The Signature of All Things, and Stern Men; the story collection Pilgrims; and the nonfiction books Big Magic, Eat Pray Love, Committed, and The Last American Man. A finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN/Hemingway Award.

NOTE: See website for further details and guidelines.

Where: Book Soup Off-site at Saban Theatre

Date: Monday the 27^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 8440 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2025-10-27/evening-elizabeth-gilbert-los-angeles

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

We’ll keep it cozy with writing prompts and maybe even some typewriter collective poetry too.

Entrance requires a drink purchase in the shop. Holy Grounds will also be crafting a fun drink to inspire us for the night, too!

All writing levels are well. Not sure if you’re a writer? No sweat! Come on through anyway and just write what comes to mind. And if we feel brave, we’ll share what we wrote, too.

I’m excited to collab with the Holy Grounds team to write with community in such a beautiful space. See you under the tree!

Entrance requires a drink purchase.

Where: Holy Grounds Coffee

Date: Monday the 27^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Dual Book Launch: Sara Jaffe & Hurricane Envy, and Max Delsohn & Crawl at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event

Sara Jaffe will present and discuss Hurricane Envy.

Max Delsohn will present and discuss Crawl.

Max Delsohn’s writing appears in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, VICE, Joyland, The Rumpus, and Triangle House, among other places. He earned an MFA from Syracuse University. He lives in Los Angeles.

Sara Jaffe is a writer, educator, and musician living in Portland, OR. Hurricane Envy is her second book. Dryland, a novel, was published by Tin House Books and Cipher Press (UK). Her short fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared in publications including Joyland, Fence, BOMB, NOON, and Maggot Brain. She co-edited The Art of Touring (Yeti, 2009), an anthology of writing and visual art by musicians drawing on her experience as guitarist for post-punk band Erase Errata. She is a proudly anti-Zionist Jew working for Palestinian liberation.

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Monday the 27^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-9ab54845-1386-4b54-a8c3-73891a198a38

At Skylight: Donika Kelly, with Jennifer Espinoza, & The Natural Order of Things at Skylight – In-Person Event

Donika Kelly, in conversation with Jennifer Espinoza, will discuss her poetry collection The Natural Order of Things: Poems (paperback).

An extraordinary and unexpected book of finding happiness, by the award-winning author of The Renunciations.

What does a life look like on the other side of survival, and can the one who survived come to recognize that she did?

Donika Kelly’s poetry is known for its resonant, unflinching confrontations with trauma and inheritance, translated through myth and nature. The Natural Order of Things expands these explorations into a new realm: one defined by joy and connection. It is an ode to companionship with people, animals, and our planet, and reveals the reparative power of intimacy. In poems inventive, playful, and formally nimble, Kelly pays homage to the voices and people she comes from, the songs of her lineage. Other poems follow the early stirrings of love to erotic transcendence with the lover and the self. Throughout, Kelly finds mirror and marvel in nature, art, and precious friendships. Though it once seemed impossible, she realizes a surprising place for herself, a rightness in the larger world.

The Natural Order of Things is a brilliant and moving book, one that reaches toward equilibrium and something like happiness.

RSVP

Donika Kelly is the author of Bestiary, winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and The Renunciations, winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Jennifer Espinoza is the author of I’m Alive / It Hurts / I Love It, There Should Be Flowers, and I Don’t Want To Be Understood. She holds an MFA in poetry from UC Riverside and currently resides in California.

Where: Skylight

Date: Monday, the 27^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Ten-year-old Mona and her beloved grandfather have only fifty-two Wednesdays to visit fifty-two works of art and commit to memory “all that is beautiful in the world” before Mona loses her sight forever.

While the doctors can find no explanation for Mona’s brief episode of blindness, they agree that the threat of permanent vision loss cannot be ruled out. The girl’s grandfather, Henry, may not be able to stop his granddaughter from losing her sight, but he can fill the encroaching darkness with beauty.

Every Wednesday for a year, the pair abscond together and visit a single masterpiece in one of Paris’s renowned museums. From Botticelli to Basquiat, Mona learns how each artist’s work shaped the world around them. In turn, the young girl’s world is changed forever by the power of their art. Under the kind and careful tutelage of her grandfather, Mona learns the true meaning of generosity, melancholy, love, loss, and revolution. Her perspective will never be the same—nor will the reader’s.

Mona’s Eyes is a heartfelt, enlightening journey across five centuries of Western art history. Thomas Schlesser’s sensational debut novel is at once a moving book about the beauty of life and a deeply touching story about the special bond between a girl and her grandfather.

Discover all 52 masterpieces inside the fold-out dustjacket.

RSVP

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Monday, the 27^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-10-27/thomas-schlesser-discusses-signs-monas-eyes

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 27^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)

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

Let Francesca help you with all aspects of your writing!

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

About the instructor:

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

Tuesdays & Thursdays @10AM | $15

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com

Tuesday Tales: A Travelin’ Storytime, Session 1 at Main 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: Main Library, SMPL

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11 am

Address: 601 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90401

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 October 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 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 28^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14499562

Tuesday Tales: A Travelin’ Storytime, Session 2 at Main 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: Main Library, SMPL

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 11:30 am – 12 pm

Address: 601 Main St., Santa Monica, CA 90401

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

Teen Book Club: Frankenstein at Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Teen Event

Join us and discuss Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Copies available at the library. For teens.

Where: Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm

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

A dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm’s Goose Girl, rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic

A small number of copies will be available for checkout on September 30, 2025.

Where: El Monte Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

Address: 3224 Tyler Ave., El Monte, CA 91731

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14751933#branch

Iacoboni Book Club: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow at Angelo M. Iacoboni Library, LACL – In-Person Event

October’s Book Pick for discussion is Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.

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

This title is also available in e-book and e-audio format through Libby.

Where: Angleo M Iacoboni Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 4990 Clark Ave., Lakewood, CA 90712

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14751933#branch

LGBTQ+ Book Club: Outliving Michael at West Hollywood Library, LACL – In-Person & Online Zoom Hybrid Event

October’s Book Pick for discussion is Outliving Michael by Steven Reigns.

This is a hybrid event and will be hosted in-person in the West Hollywood Library Community Meeting Room as well as on Zoom. Please register at the link below to receive the link to the meeting via email.

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

West Hollywood Library’s LGBTQ+ Book Club meets on the last Tuesday of the month to discuss literary works of relevance and interest to the LGBTQ+ community.

Please contact the library to borrow a print copy of the book.

Summary provided by the publisher:

Outliving Michael is a memorial memoir in poetry, chronicling Steven Reigns’s profound friendship with Michael Church, who died of AIDS in 2000. Through vignettes and tender reflections, Reigns traces their intergenerational bond, a connection of mentorship, shared artistic pursuits, and the quiet acts of devotion that shaped their lives as gay men in the 1990s.

This deeply personal collection becomes both an elegy and an archive, honoring the countless roles played by a generation lost to AIDS: lover, sibling, parent, friend. Reigns preserves the texture of their companionship with unflinching honesty and lyricism, illuminating how certain people leave an indelible mark long after they are gone.

Where: West Hollywood Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14373061

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

October’s Book Pick for discussion is The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl.

Copies are available at the Customer Service desk and newcomers are always welcome! For adults.

Stella is left with an unusual inheritance: a one-way plane ticket and a note reading “Go to Paris.” When her boss encourages her to take time off, Stella resigns herself to honor her mother’s wishes, even if a spontaneous trip to Paris is the last thing she wants. A feast for the senses, this novel is a testament to what it means to live deliciously: to be authentic, to embrace adventure, and to find a home in the last place you might expect.

Where: Quartz Hill Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14585318

Phy-Sci Book Club: A City on Mars at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Join participants to discuss A City on Mars: Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through? by Kelly Weinersmith.

From the bestselling authors of Soonish, a brilliant and hilarious off-world investigation into space settlement

EARTH IS NOT WELL. The promise of starting life anew somewhere far, far away—no climate change, no war, no doomscrolling—beckons, and settling the stars finally seems within our grasp. Or is it? Critically acclaimed, bestselling authors Kelly and Zach Weinersmith set out to write the essential guide to a glorious future of space settlements, but after years of research, they aren’t so sure it’s a good idea. Space technologies and space businesses are progressing fast, but we lack the knowledge needed to have space kids, build space farms, and create space nations in a way that doesn’t spark conflict back home. In a world hurtling toward human expansion into space, A City on Mars investigates whether the dream of new worlds won’t create nightmares, both for settlers and the people they leave behind. In the process, the Weinersmiths answer every question about space you’ve ever wondered about, and many you’ve never considered:

Can you make babies in space? Should corporations govern space settlements? What about space war? Are we headed for a housing crisis on the Moon’s Peaks of Eternal Light—and what happens if you’re left in the Craters of Eternal Darkness? Why do astronauts love taco sauce? Speaking of meals, what’s the legal status of space cannibalism?

With deep expertise, a winning sense of humor, and art from the beloved creator of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, the Weinersmiths investigate perhaps the biggest questions humanity will ever ask itself—whether and how to become multiplanetary.

Get in, we’re going to Mars.

The Weinersmiths, a wife-and-husband research team, cowrote the New York Times bestselling popular science book Soonish, a Wall Street Journal and Popular Science book of the year. Dr. Kelly Weinersmith is an adjunct faculty member in the BioSciences department at Rice University. Her research has been featured in The Atlantic, National Geographic, BBC World, Science, and Nature. Zach Weinersmith makes the webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. He illustrated the New York Times bestselling Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration, and his work has been featured in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Forbes, Science Friday, Foreign Policy, PBS, and elsewhere. The Weinersmiths live on an old farm in Virginia with their two children.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 6 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/queer-book-club-mirage-city-0

Mystery Book Club: Frankenstein at Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Teen Event

Join us to discuss The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall. Copies available at the library. All are welcome.

Where: Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 6:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-10

La Crescenta Library Book Club: The Glass Maker at La Crescenta Library, LACL – In-Person Event

October’s Book Pick for discussion is The Glass Maker by Tracy Chevalier. Find your copy and discussion questions at the Book Club Corner located across from the Customer Service Desk. New members always welcome. For adults.

In 1486, Orsola Rosso is the eldest daughter in a family of glassblowers in Murano, Italy. As a woman, she is not meant to blow glass—but when her father dies, she teaches herself to make beads in secret, and her work becomes the cornerstone of the Rosso family fortunes. Skipping like a stone through the centuries, we follow Orsola and her family as they live through creative triumph and heartbreaking loss, from a plague rearing its head over Venice to Continental soldiers stripping its palazzos bare, from the domination of Murano and its maestros to the transformation of the city of trade into a city of tourists. In every era, the Rosso women ensure that their work, and their bonds, endure.

Where: La Crescenta Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:45 pm

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

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 the author 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 has 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.

Wendy Cheng is a writer, geographer, and professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at USC. She is the author of The Changs Next Door to the Díazes: Remapping Race in Suburban California and coauthor of A People’s Guide to Los Angeles. She is currently working on a book of creative nonfiction essays about plant migrations and relationships to land and life between Southern California and Northeast Asia.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-10-28/myriam-gurba-poppy-state-labyrinth-plants-and-story-beginnings

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

The Village Well Book Club offshoot, the Sci-fi Fantasy Book Club! To the Tolkien nerds, SJM stans, and R.F. Kuang enjoyers, this group is for you! On the fourth Tuesday of every month, we will come together and discuss a story that falls within the realms of either science fiction or fantasy (or sometimes both!). To join our emailing list, reach out to events@villagewell.com.

This month’s pick is Kindred by Octavia Butler.

About the book:

“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.”

Dana’s 26th birthday celebration ends when she’s ripped from 1976 California and thrust onto a Maryland slave plantation in 1815. Her mission: keep alive the white boy who will grow up to assault her ancestor—because without him, she’ll never be born.

Every trip back grows more dangerous. Dana feels the lash, wears the chains, endures the daily terror that defined millions of lives. She can’t just read about slavery’s horrors—she lives them, bleeds from them, nearly breaks under them.

Butler doesn’t let you observe from a safe distance. You’re trapped in Dana’s skin as she navigates impossible choices: submit to survive, or resist and risk everything. You’ll feel her desperation as she fights to preserve her humanity while the plantation’s brutality threatens to consume her.

This isn’t historical fiction—it’s time travel that cuts straight to the bone of American racism. Butler pioneered the neo-slavery narrative that inspired Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Water Dancer. But Kindred remains unmatched in its raw power to make slavery’s legacy feel.

You’ll finish this book changed. Dana’s story will lodge itself in your chest and refuse to leave. You’ll understand, in ways textbooks never taught you, how the past lives in our present—and why that matters more than ever.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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 28^th

Time: 7 pm – 10 pm

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Ticketed: Kim Chi, with Godoy & Kim Chi Eats the World: 75 Recipes Fit for a (Drag) Queen at Book Soup – In-Person Event

KIM CHI is a sickening drag queen, fierce business mogul, and lifelong culinary connoisseur.

Drawing inspiration from the many countries she has traveled to on tour, in her debut cookbook, the superstar brings you along on a trip around the world. Starting off in North America, you’ll find good ol’ Canadian Classic Poutine and tempting Birria Tortas from Mexico. The next stop is South America for the most delectable Brazilian Brigadeiro Cake. Then on to Europe for French Lemon Sole, Swiss Roasted Flour Soup, and Italian Warm Lemon Ricotta Dip. And finally, you’ll find yourself in Asia, where you can enjoy a mouthwatering Bossam that rivals the best Korean restaurants, and an Indian Dal Tadka that will leave your kitchen smelling divine. Along the way, Kim spills the tea with personal stories of her favorite memories, expeditions, and every perfect bite.

 Off-site at highlights a curated list of her favorite dishes and provides her own tried-and-true, easy-to-follow recipes for each, all with a unique Kim Chi twist. Plus, vibrant, bold photography captures Kim’s humongous personality on the page—she’s a delicious diva. After you cook your way through these recipes, you’ll be giving international realness without ever having to leave your house. Werk.

One ticket = admission into the event + a copy of Kim Chi Eats the World. Your ticket grants you admission into the meet-and-greet signing line where you will get the opportunity to have your book signed by Kim and take a photo with her.

This is an all ages event!

Questions? Please email info@booksoup.com

Where: Book Soup

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2025-10-28/ticketed-kim-chi-conversation-godoy-discusses-and-signs-kim-chi-eats-world-75

Book Talk: Slavoj Zizek and a Celebration of his Life and Works at Chevalier’s Off-site at Robert Frost Auditorium – In-Person Event

“In this very special celebration we’ll delve deep into his life story and intellectual journey. From his life and education in the former Yugoslavia, where his master’s thesis was denounced by the authorities for being ‘not Marxist enough’, and his fight to democratize Slovenia and defend human rights, to his current position as one of the 21st century’s most renowned public intellectuals, this is a one-of-a-kind glimpse into the makings of the man widely known as ‘the most dangerous philosopher in the West’.

“We’ll explore his philosophical journey through Hegel and Lacan. And we’ll hear his thoughts on the state of the world and our prospects for the future. What does he think about AI, chatbots, and other new technologies of our age? Is there hope left for humankind in an age of impending climate catastrophe? Does philosophy need to reinvent itself in the wake of quantum physics? Is progress really a good thing?

“Discover the answer to all, some, or none of these questions from one of the most outrageous and maverick thinkers of our time.”

Slavoj Žižek is a Hegelian philosopher, Lacanian theorist, and self-described “moderately conservative Marxist.” Widely regarded as one of the most provocative and original thinkers of our time, his work spans philosophy, psychoanalysis, film criticism, and cultural theory. He is the author of the forthcoming Quantum History, as well as the ongoing essay series Žižek’s Essays, which includes the 2024 bestseller Against Progress.

RSVP at website for tickets.

Where: Chevalier’s Off-site at Robert Frost Auditorium

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Please note – there will be no signing at this event. If you would like a preordered personalized copy of the book TOM’S CROSSING, please follow the link to place your order!

This event is free but RSVPs are highly encouraged.

Where: Chevalier’s

Date: Wednesday the 28^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Facilitated by Mark Polak

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Tenderhearted is a compelling memoir that explores race, cultural representation, Black Media‘s legacy. privilege, and identity from Vibe’s founding fashion editor.

In Tenderheaded, Davis journeys back through her career as both a celebration and an interrogation of Black media, exploring the difficult truth of how historically Black media titles and brands have had such mighty, culture-shifting starts, then disappeared or limped along in mainstream obscurity. Her story is one of self-discovery and liberation, as she navigates the complexities of identity politics, sexism, and racism within the media industry. Her career has been a tapestry of glamorous adventures from the bustling streets of 1980s New York City to the exotic markets of Morocco, all while styling some of the most influential figures in music and culture. Yet, beneath the surface of this dazzling world lies a poignant narrative of struggle and resilience.

Tenderheaded is not just a memoir; it is a cultural manifesto that questions the legacy of Black media and the stories of Black women that remain untold. Davis’s narrative is both a romance and a tragedy, reflecting her American life and the broader story of American media.

Michaela Angela Davis is a writer, creative director, producer, and image activist focusing on the intersections of gender, race, fashion, culture, beauty, and identity. Davis collaborated with Mariah Carey on The Meaning of Mariah Carey, which was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller, and also another collaboration for a children’s book titled The Christmas Princess. She was the fashion editor and fashion, beauty, and culture editor at Essence magazine, founding fashion director at VIBE magazine, and fashion and editor in chief of Honey magazine.

Arthur Jafa is an artist and filmmaker. Across three decades, Jafa has developed a dynamic practice comprising films, artefacts and happenings that reference and question the universal and specific articulations of Black being. Underscoring the many facets of Jafa’s practice is a recurring question: How can visual media, such as objects, static and moving images, transmit the equivalent “power, beauty and alienation” embedded within forms of Black music in U.S. culture? Jafa’s films have garnered acclaim at the Los Angeles, New York and Black Star Film Festivals, and his artwork is represented in celebrated collections worldwide including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Tate, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The High Museum Atlanta, The Dallas Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Stedelijk, Luma Foundation, The Perez Art Museum Miami, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, among others. Select recent institutional solo exhibitions include MCA Chicago, Illinois (2024); OGR Torino, Italy (2022); LUMA Foundation, Arles, France (2022); Glenstone, Potomac, Maryland (2021); Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humblebæk, Denmark (2021); Fundação de Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2020); Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Canada (2020); and Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden (2019). In 2019, he received the Golden Lion for the Best Participant of the 58th Venice Biennale “May You Live in Interesting Times.”

Where: Reparations Club

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 7 pm (Doors at 6:30 pm)

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

A book signing will follow the discussion.

RSVP: Ticketed event

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Tuesday the 28^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Who killed the Black Dahlia? In this eye-opening shocker, an award-winning producer, true-crime researcher, and Hollywood insider finally solves the greatest—and most gruesome—murder mystery of the twentieth century just before its 80th anniversary.

In January 1947, the bisected body of Elizabeth Short, completely drained of blood, was discovered in an undeveloped lot in Los Angeles. Its gruesome mutilations led to a firestorm of publicity, city-wide panic, and an unprecedented number of investigative paths led by the LAPD—all dead ends. The Black Dahlia murder remained an unsolved mystery for over seventy years.

Six years earlier and sixteen hundred miles away, another woman’s life had ended in a similarly horrific manner. Leila Welsh was an ambitious, educated, popular, and socially connected beauty. Though raised modestly on a prairie farm, she was heiress to her Kansas City family’s status and wealth. On a winter morning in 1941, Leila’s butchered body was found in her bedroom bearing the marks of unspeakable trauma.

One victim faded into obscurity. The other became notorious. Both had in common a killer whose sadistic mind was a labyrinth of dark secrets.

Eli Frankel reveals for the first time a key fact about the Black Dahlia crime scene, never before shared with the public, that leads inexorably to the stunning identification of a criminal who was at the same time amateurish and fiendish, skilled and lucky, sophisticated and brutish. Drawing on newly discovered documents, law enforcement files, interviews with the last surviving participants, the victims’ own letters, trial transcripts, military records, and more, this epic true-crime saga puts together the missing pieces of a legendary puzzle.

In Sisters in Death, the Black Dahlia cold case is finally closed.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Tuesday, the 28^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-10-28/eli-frankel

The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rick Lupert and featured reader TBA – Online Zoom Event

Cobalt Poets Reading & Open Mic and host Rick Lupert and a featured reader TBA. 

Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event

Date: Tuesday, the 28^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Address: Online event (see site)

Website: https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/

Sunflower Night Readings at Tabula Rasa Bar, Hollywood – In-Person Event

Nikolai Garcia hosts Sunflower Nights with readings by:

Laura Sermeño was born in Montebello, CA, raised and educated in Sur El Monte, (UCLA matriculated), educated by her people—from the classrooms to the streets. In 2012, she began auditioning for spoken word performances. She is the author of born to cry and Loving You like a Mexican.

Paasha Motamedi is an Iranian-Indonesian-American artist, raised on Coronado Island, educated in New York City, and currently based in Los Angeles. His multidisciplinary practice—shaped by poetry, cooking, music, and visual arts—took a decisive turn after embracing sobriety in 2015, leading him to explore slow-motion videography, photography, painting, and most recently, fragrance composition.

Iris De Anda is a Guanaca Tapatia poet, speaker and musician who has been featured with KPFK and KPFA Pacifica Radio, organized with Academy of American Poets, performed at Los Angeles Latino Book Festival, LA Times Festival of Books, UNAM in CDMX, CECUT in Tijuana, Mexico, Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba and is named one of Today’s Revolutionary Women of Color. Author of Codeswitch: Fires from Mi Corazon (Los Writers Underground Press, 2014), Roots of Redemption: You Have No Right to Remain Silent (FlowerSong Press, 2022) and Loose Poems a collection of B-side poems and songs released by Multimedia Militia in 2022.

Daryl Gussin is a poet and Managing Editor of Razorcake. He is the author of The Forgotten Edge, among other poetry zines and collections. He lives in Los Ángeles.

Laura E. Espinoza is a poet whose work has been featured in various anthologies and literary journals. She is currently a graduate student in the M.F.A. Program in Poetry and has contributed to workshops and teaching initiatives in the field of creative writing.

Jesenia Chavez is a proud Chicanita, public-school teacher, writer, poet and storyteller. She has kept a diary since elementary school, and it is filled with witty observations on the life of a little Mexican girl in Southeast Los Angeles who keeps losing her chanclas. Her debut collection is This Poem Might Save You (Me) (Alegría Publishing, 2022).

Bri Stokes is a writer, editor, curator, cultural worker, producer and poet born, raised and living in Los Angeles, on unceded Tongva land. Her writing has appeared in BuzzFeed, 45th Parallel, Epiphany, the Northridge Review, and elsewhere. Bri is a former poetry editor at the now-disbanded Hecate Magazine, and served as the Managing Editor of Issue 04 of SKEW Magazine. Her debut chapbook, A Throat Full of Forest-Dirt, was published in late-2023 by Bottlecap Press. Earlier in 2023, she was longlisted for Thin Air Magazine’s “The Bird In Your Hands” prize for poetry. In 2018, she was awarded “Best Short Story” by the El Camino College Myriad for her speculative fiction piece, “Pr(e)y.” Bri is a 2024 Voodoonauts Fellow and an editorial assistant at HINCHAS Press.

Where: Tabula Rasa Bar 

Date: Tuesday, the 28^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm

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

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

Masks are encouraged.

Where: Ora Café

Date: Tuesday, the 28^th

Time: 9 pm – 11 pm

Come write with us!

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

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

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

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

Time: 8:30 am – 9:30 am

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com

Author Talk: Philippa Gregory & Boleyn Traitor via Virtual Program, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for an intriguing conversation with Philippa Gregory about her newest novel Boleyn Traitor.

Jane Boleyn watches from the shadows of the Tudor Court, where secrets are currency, every choice is dangerous, and even the faintest whisper can seal the fate of queens.

For Jane, survival demands playing every role required of her: a loving wife who conceals her doubts, a devoted sister to Anne Boleyn at the height of her power, and an obedient spy who carefully wields her words. But in a court ruled by ambition and a tyrant’s sword, Jane must rely on her sharp wit and skillful maneuvering to outthink those around her, knowing that one wrong move could cost her everything.

With a rich tapestry of new historical insights and lyrical language honed over decades of writing, Gregory’s return to the Tudors is a new definition of this most fascinating era. As the world becomes more extreme and unpredictable, Jane’s story of survival and ingenuity offers a compelling parallel, serving as both a powerful historical narrative and an echo of the challenges we face. This is a riveting tale of loyalty and betrayal, ambition and love—one that should not be missed by readers this fall.

Register today for this exciting glimpse into the perilous 16th century royal court! 

Where: Virtual Program, LACL

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14568154

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 29^th

Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm

Address: On-air Event (live)

Without Fear is a sweeping manuscript that tells the 200-year history of Black women’s leadership in national and international human rights movements, highlighting how they connected struggles for freedom across the globe and transformed human rights into an active principle of organizing for justice. Featuring both well-known and lesser-known figures, it forces audiences to focus on Black women’s perspectives and strategies for combating systems of injustice by addressing racism, sexism, and classism.

Keisha N. Blain is professor of Africana studies and history at Brown University. She is a Guggenheim, Carnegie, and New America Fellow, and author—most recently of the National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Until I Am Free. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

Jehan Giles is a Teacher-Librarian, community archivist, and 2 time NEH Fellow. Jehan is a cultural worker who focuses on improving the lives of children and Black & Brown Women through pedagogy, programming, and restorative practices.

Please note that this is a virtual event and as the author is not local.

Where: Chevalier’s

Date: Wednesday the 28^th

Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm

Address: Online Event

In this story, Aria and Nainai are back in this sweet and magical middle-grade, full-color graphic novel about a mysterious ancient monster and the quest to set it free.

Aria thought her life would go back to normal when she left her nainai’s boba shop—and the monster living below it—behind in San Francisco.

But while Aria and Nainai may have stopped the Big One, the aftershocks from her summer adventure are far from over. Each night, the monster visits Aria’s dreams, calling her back to the caves below the city. Stranger still, Aria’s discovered a newfound ability to manipulate water…but her powers aren’t quite under her control.

So, Aria convinces her parents she needs another visit with Nainai, and she packs her bags and heads back to San Francisco.

Beneath the boba shop, Aria and Nainai learn the monster’s secret—he needs their help to return home. Can Aria learn how to harness her new powers (and a whole lot of boba) to bring the monster back to the sea, or will it be trapped under the city forever?

Nidhi Chanani is an award-winning author and illustrator. Her graphic novels include Pashmina, Jukebox the Shark Princess series and the Super Boba Cafe series. She also creates picture books. Some of her titles are: I will be fierce, Strong, Binny’s Diwali, What Will My Story Be and Quiet Karima. When she’s not drawing, Nidhi loves to travel and has visited 20 countries. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Phil Yu is the founder and editor of the popular Asian American news and culture blog, Angry Asian Man, which has had a devoted following since 2001. His commentary has been featured and quoted in The Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and elsewhere.

RSVP for tickets at website.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

Time: 4 pm – 5 pm

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

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/graphic-novel-talk-super-boba-cafe-2-by-nidhi-chanani-tickets-1758703763299?aff=oddtdtcreator

Sci-Fi Book Club: Shadow Speaker at Van Nuys Branch, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join our Science Fiction book club for a lively discussion of the book Shadowspeaker by Nnedi Okorafor.

Synopsis: In the year 2071 the laws of physics have changed and things are not what they used to be.

Where: Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/sci-fi-book-club-shadow-speaker-nnedi-okorafor

Author Event: Eli Frankel & Sisters in Death at Van Nuys Branch, LAPL – In-Person Event

Eli Frankel will present and discuss Sisters in Death: The Black Dahlia, the Prairie Heiress and Their Hunter.

The Black Dahlia Killer is Finally Revealed! Award-winning producer, true-crime researcher, Hollywood insider, and lifelong Angelino Eli Frankel finally solves the greatest—and most gruesome murder mystery of the 20th century, just before its 80th anniversary. Join us for a book talk as Eli Frankel shares key facts about the Black Dahlia murder for the first time. Drawing on newly discovered documents, law enforcement files, interviews with the last surviving participants, the victims’ own letters, trial transcripts, military records, and more, Frankel reveals the killer’s identity. Book signing to follow.

Where: Central Library, LAPL, Mark Taper Auditorium

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Carlota Moreau has grown up isolated from the troubles of the world on a remote estate in the Yucatán. There, her genius father labors on monstrous experiments that would shock the world—if they ever came to light. The arrival of Eduardo Lizalde, the son of Doctor Moreau’s wealthy patron, sets off a series of events that uncovers secrets and sends their lives spinning into chaos.

Join us for our inaugural Sci-Fi/Fantasy Book Club as we discuss this reimagining of the classic science fiction novel The Island of Doctor Moreau. Copies will be available at the Customer Service Desk.

Attendance is limited, and advance registration is required.

Where: Quartz Hill Library, LACL

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 5040 W. Ave M 2., Quartz Hill, CA 35361

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14602408

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 29^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

Address: On-Air Event (Radio Ollin)

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

Tricks, Treats, and Poets at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event

Featuring:

Julia Saenz Lorduy (Bogotá, Colombia) writes, teaches, curates and makes textile art. She studied sociology and math at Columbia University in the City of New York. In 2022 she completed a Master in Fine Arts (MFA) in creative writing at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).  She was awarded the graduate teaching fellowship for a class she proposed: feminist text(ile) practices, on feminist practices in text and textiles, a critical studies course offered to undergraduates in the fall of 2022. Her work threads education, writing and textiles as practices of the self and to weave different futures. Espejismo, her first poetry collection, was recognized at the XX Premio de Poesía Obra Inédita by Tertulia Literaria, and it will be published by Valparaíso.​

Marcel Humberto Monroy is a Los Angeles based poet and cellist, Marcel Monroy is a queer femme Latinx person with he/him pronouns. His writing is inspired by a blend of personal experiences with addiction, growing up in the repressive and racist American South, and the works of authors such as James Baldwin, Allen Ginsburg, Audre Lorde, and Gloria Anzaldúa. He currently attends the University of California Santa Cruz and is a part of an artist collective called Family Dinner located in LA, where he is working on his first collection of poems and an EP. His work has previously been published in Mixed Life, a digital magazine, and will be featured in The Whole Alphabet, an anthology of queer contemporary poets released by So Say We All publications.

Atlakatl Te Tochtli N/A

Nikki Ochoa is an ancient baby from Kudzu covered forests. She is a sculpturalist, poet, visual + performance artist, and musician. Her practice aims to create poetry that exists in the physical realm, and on nurturing community spaces outside of capital expectations. Liberation and enchantment for all.

She loves babies and dirt. She would like to become a contortionist and build a flying machine. She likes to walk around for hours and just see how the light hits.

Sarah Abouzeid N/A

Greg Jenkins N/A

Betty Tsehai is a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, originally from Vancouver, BC. Her work spans film, installation, performance, painting, and writing. In her practice, she explores the core of everyday interactions and the absurdities within them.

Meredith Mas Guerrero is the events manager at Coaxial Arts, Bandleader in @punitiveworm and half of @aloe__f. She’s tall and 32 years old.

Anika Jhalani lives in Williamsburg and works for Scholastic, the children’s book publisher. She is a graduate of Columbia University, where she studied business management and creative writing.

Issa Nasrallah N/A

Where: Stories Books & Café

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

Time: 6 pm – 9 pm

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

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

Mystery & Thriller Book Club: Miracle Creek at Studio City Branch, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us on the last Wednesday of every month for our Mystery & Thriller book club!

Participants willdiscuss Miracle Creek by Angie Kim.

RSVP:

Please email studio@lapl.org for details.

Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: 12511 Moorpark Street, Studio City, CA 91604

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

Shirin Behzadi & The Unexpected CEO: My Journey from Gas Station Cashier to Billion-Dollar CEO at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event

Shirin Behzadi will present and discuss The Unexpected CEO: My Journey from Gas Station Cashier to Billion-Dollar CEO.

She started behind bulletproof glass at a gas station. She ended up leading a billion-dollar company. Shirin Behzadi was arrested multiple times under an oppressive regime in Iran before she had even reached adulthood. Fleeing her homeland alone as a teenager, she carried nothing with her but a suitcase—and a bold dream. In Istanbul, and later at a Los Angeles gas station, she quietly declared to anyone who would listen: One day, I will lead a large company. While navigating poverty, the loss of home and belonging, motherhood, and a near-terminal illness that left her unable to stand—let alone lead—Shirin raised millions in private equity and built a billion-dollar company. At every setback, she unearthed something essential: The resilience she had honed in dark times could also light the way forward in business, in leadership, and in life. The Unexpected CEO tells a compelling and powerful story of lessons carved from challenges and a life constructed despite dire circumstances. In these pages, Shirin shares not only her extraordinary journey, but also the wisdom earned at every turn. Both a memoir and a guide, this book offers a blueprint for turning life’s deepest trials into stepping stones toward purpose and possibility. Readers will discover: Tools for turning adversity into fuel for growth Hard-won insights on resilience, reinvention, and rising stronger Real-world strategies for leading with empathy—and why it works Candid lessons on raising capital and navigating private equity A framework for building not just a thriving business, but a meaningful life as well true stories that illuminate the power of vision, grit, and unwavering belief This is not a tale of overnight success, but of steady strength, rebuilding from the ground up, and what becomes possible when adversity is met with unwavering intent. Because success isn’t just what you build—it’s who you become along the way.

Shirin Behzadi is the former CEO of a billion-dollar company, an entrepreneur, a board advisor, and author of The Unexpected CEO: My Journey from Gas Station Cashier to Billion-Dollar CEO. Born in Iran and arriving in the United States as a teenager with little more than hope, she built her career through resilience, authenticity, and compassion. Today, Shirin shares her hard-won insights on leadership, entrepreneurship, and thriving through adversity—empowering women everywhere to own their voices and define success on their own terms.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-10-29/shirin-unexpected-ceo

Jennifer Cox, with Elisha Reverby, & Women Are Angry at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Women Are Angry is a revolutionary book exposing the rage women feel but have been holding, to their physical and mental detriment, for too long. It is written by psychotherapist Jennifer Cox and includes case studies exploring the female experience and our conditioning in a patriarchal society and how that has affected us, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Whilst running her international private practice, Jennifer Cox is a regular media contributor and speaker on issues of feminism and global mental health. Her social commentary is routinely featured in print and broadcast press, as well as in the hit Women Are Mad podcast, which she co-hosts. She has spoken on topics as diverse as trolling, incel culture, climate anxiety, overdiagnosis and impact of AI. Since graduating from Cambridge University (King’s College) in 2000, Jennifer Cox has worked extensively in psychology roles in psychiatric and forensic mental health settings across London. Jennifer has an MSc in Clinical Neuroscience from the Institute of Psychiatry (King’s College London) and is a member of the London Neuropsychoanalysis Association; bringing a fusion of neuroscientific and psychoanalytic thinking to her work.

Elisha Reverby is a beauty entrepreneur, chef, poet, and student, born and raised in New York City. Of Black, Russian, Chinese, and Jewish descent, she brings a multi-racial perspective that weaves together spirit, healing, and transformation. Through her New Beauty Mindset framework, Elisha reframes conversations around beauty and power with an unapologetic voice and a fierce commitment to advocating for women. Her purpose is to inspire women to speak boldly, break silence, and step fully into their power.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Eric Heisserer, in conversation with Stephanie Sheh, will discuss and sign Simultaneous: A Novel.

From the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Arrival comes a phenomenal speculative thriller about a federal agent and a therapist who team up to stop an otherworldly killer.

Federal agent Grant Lukather works for an unknown department of Homeland Security called Predictive Analytics. They look for patterns in tips and chatter to prevent a terrorist event before it happens. One of these calls, about a possible explosion in New Mexico, leads Grant to a case with unimaginable consequences.

He meets Sarah Newcomb, a therapist who uses past-life hypnosis in her treatment but has recently stumbled upon a phenomenon that seems to defy logic. Grant follows this thread to another crime: a copycat killer case in Colorado. With the help of one of Sarah’s patients, they embark upon an investigation that spans multiple states, timelines, and consciousnesses. With limited time and only a tenuous grasp of how this phenomenon works, the unlikely trio are in a race for their lives—past, present, and future.

Full of thrilling reveals, stunning plot twists, and a mordant sense of humor, Simultaneous is a mind-bending, one-of-a-kind thriller by a true genre star.

Eric Heisserer is the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of Arrival (2016) and the creator of the Netflix series Shadow & Bone. He lives in Los Angeles.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Just in time to celebrate three decades of baking joy, friendship, and flour-dusted dreams, Levain Bakery: A Story of Friendship, Community, and Cookies by founders Pam Weekes and Connie McDonald, with founder of SusieCakes Susan Sarich, invites readers behind the bakery counter and into the heart of one of America’s most beloved brands.

Born from a dream in a cramped Manhattan basement and built with equal parts grit, butter, and big-hearted ambition, Levain Bakery’s story is a tribute to the power of community and a commitment to doing things the right (and delicious) way. This beautifully designed book is more than a bakery memoir—it’s a celebration of small business, creativity, and cookie-fueled connection.

It’s amazing what a cookie can do. A really good cookie, that is. It can spark a romance, comfort in time of need, relay gratitude and smooth over mistakes. It can even bring a community together. In short, a great cookie can be the start of an even greater story. To celebrate its 30th anniversary, this book brings together the stories of Levain Bakery in a beautifully designed, carefully curated book—filled with photographs, illustrations, and a selection of recipes.

Where: Chevalier’s

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2025-10-29/book-launch-authors-levain-founders-pam-weekes-connie-mcdonald-plus-special-guest

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 29^th

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

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

Website: https://www.palmsupacademy.com

At Skylight: Bootsy Holler & Making It at Skylight – In-Person Event

Join is to hear Bootsy Holler present anddiscuss Making It: An Intimate Documentary of the Seattle Indie, Rock & Punk Scene, 1992-2008.

Holler’s photographic time capsule of Seattle’s music scene captures the early years of Interpol, Fleet Foxes, Death Cab for Cutie, Foo Fighters and more.

As an avid fan of Seattle’s music scene during the late 1990s and early 2000s, photographer Bootsy Holler created a remarkable portfolio documenting the little-known bands who later defined a decade in music history. She captured live gigs, band portraits, backstage moments, rapt audiences and more, chronicling the formative years of artists such as Death Cab for Cutie, Fleet Foxes, Interpol, Modest Mouse, Gossip, Beck, Moby, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Foo Fighters. Says Holler: “I was documenting my life. The musicians, promoters and bouncers were my friends, and I went to see bands I enjoyed and places I could get in for free. I didn’t know I was in the middle of something new.”

With open spine binding and cold glue bright orange thread, this collection of Holler’s energetic, raw images, together with her own personal recollections, reflects on the second generation of Seattle’s music scene, as the world transitioned from celluloid to digital, grunge to indie. It is a pilgrimage back in time, a nostalgic trip for anyone who cherishes music or yearns for a time when nobody texted or had a camera in their pocket. The book opens with a nod to a truly independent woman, with a foreword from Megan Jasper, CEO of Sub Pop Records.

Bootsy Holler was born in Washington in 1969 and moved to Seattle as a young adult. Her editorial and art photography has been featured in Vogue, House & Garden and NPR. She lives and works in Los Angeles.

Where: Skylight

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

Time: 7 pm

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

A reading where featured poets tell the stories behind the stanzas, and the audience gets to engage in a special Q&A. Also, how exciting, an open mic based on a lottery system. Are you feeling lucky? Plus, treats & free gifts. The first event is Wednesday, October 29. Halloween season. The theme is “Haunt Me,” so come dressed as your favorite haunting. Honored to be the first poet to be featured!

RSVP: Ticketed event; $22

Where: 12^th House Tea Sanctuary

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

At Underdog Bookstore we love supporting local authors on the shelves and at our signings and panels, but sometimes you just want to turn off the book selling brain and enjoy each other’s company instead.

We hope that these meetups will provide an opportunity to connect, collaborate, and spend time in community. Whether you’re self-published and new to the industry or have trade tales to share from your experience in indie or major publishing—all authors are welcome here.

Our space is food, drink, and pet friendly, so feel free to bring your favorite refreshments and animal companions!

RSVP

Where: Underdog Bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.underdogbookstore.org/events/local-authors-meetup-segb8-sfzbl-mrthn-sghhl-lf8ad

Ticketed: Andrew Morton, with Diana Nixon, & Winston and the Windsors at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Andrew Morton, in conversation with Diana Nixon, will discuss and sign Winston and the Windsors: How Churchill Shaped a Royal Dynasty.

From an early age, Winston Churchill was convinced that he was a man of destiny. Today, it seems his premonition was correct; few figures in British history have been so deeply and consequently involved with the British family as Churchill. While many people in positions of power have advised kings and queens during their reign, Churchill is unique in his role: helping to shape not only a reign, but an entire royal dynasty.

In Winston and the Windsors, one of the world’s best-known biographers and a leading authority on celebrity Andrew Morton presents a meticulously researched joint biography of Winston Churchill and the House of Windsor. Throughout the course of his career and life, Churchill’s relationship with the Windsor’s fluctuated wildly. At times, he was the royal family’s trusted confidante. At others, he was their leading antagonist. In exploring the complex relationship between the two, Morton argues that – whether the attitudes of the royal family were warm or icy towards Churchill – their relationship is central to the twentieth-century history of the British monarchy.

From the Churchill family’s complex relationship with the crown; to Winston’s initially begrudging but ultimately fruitful partnership with George VI; to his enduring fondness for Queen Elizabeth II, this fascinating narrative biography sheds a new light on the ways the crown not only shaped Winston Churchill’s career – but the ways in which Churchill shepherded the monarchy into the modern era.

This is an in-store ticketed event with two ticket options. See site for details.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Wednesday, the 29^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-10-29/ticketed-andrew-morton-conversation-diana-nixon-discusses-signs-winston-and

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 29^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Story Salon: Theme: Scared Stupid 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: Scared Stupid.

Where: Art Parlor

Date: Wednesday the 29^th

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

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop with Jose Hernandez Diaz via Beyond Baroque – Online Event

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

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

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

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 29^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Host Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry will host a reading from: Dark Ink: A Poetry Anthology Inspired by Horror.

Dark Ink is a collection of poetry inspired by, or in response to, the genre of horror as found in film, literature, folklore/mythology, or just classic monster tropes. This anthology features 66 poets who celebrate the fun and fright for everything that goes bump in the night…we have poetic takes on Frankenstein’s monster and his bride, musings on zombies, Lovecraft-ian (is that a word?) love letters, metaphorical monsters (and Munsters), vampiric verses, and much, much more. If you are a fan of poetry or horror or BOTH, this is a book for you!

$5 cover fee, cash only

Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange

Date: Wednesday, the 29^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Let Francesca help you with all aspects of your writing!

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

About the instructor:

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

Tuesdays & Thursdays @10AM | $15

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Thursday the 30^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com

Marina del Rey Book Club: The Island of Sea Women at Lloyd Taber Marina del Rey Library, LACL – In-Person Event

This month, we’ll read The Island of Sea Women, by Lisa See. Mi-ja and Young-sook are best friends living on the Korean island of Jeju. They take up their positions as divers, and jump start a life of excitement but also danger. For adults 18+.

This historical novel begins during a period of Japanese colonialism in the 1930s and 1940s, followed by World War II, the Korean War and its aftermath, to then present day. Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends that come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective, led by Young-sook’s mother. As the girls take up their positions as divers, they know they are beginning a life of excitement and responsibility but also danger.

This is the afternoon session. The evening discussion is held from6 pm – 7pm.

Where: Lloyd Taber-Marina del Rey Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 30^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14585688

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

Explore your creativity and build your writing skills in this fun creative writing workshop for adult writers of all ages! No preparation required. Bring a notebook and pen if possible.

RSVP:

Optional: email katie.wright@lapl.org

Where: Canoga Park Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 30^th

Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm

Address: 20939 Sherman Way, Canoga Park, CA 91303

This one and a half hour workshop is suitable for adults, and the group is limited to a maximum of 12 participants.


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

RSVP:

Email eaglrk@lapl.org to reserve a place in the class.

Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 16^th

Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-workshop-martin-jago-0

Jennifer Fisher, with Katherine Power, & Trust Your Gut at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event

Jennifer Fisher, in conversation with Kathrine Power, will present and discuss Trust Your Gut: Anti-Inflamatory Recipes for Feeling Unstoppable.

Since being diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease in high school and learning how to listen to her body as an adult, jewelry, pottery, and custom salts designer Jennifer Fisher has completely transformed her life through what she consumes. She now has more energy. Her body feels more efficient, and it’s easier to think—and move.

Through her journey, Fisher found that it wasn’t just eliminating one thing or following one diet, as she had tried so many times before, but practicing all of these things in tandem. She has made it her mission to demystify how to live healthfully—it’s not by following a diet but instead discovering a holistic approach to changing your life through food. Fisher knows firsthand how daunting it is to live with chronic illness, and Trust Your Gut: Anti-Inflamatory Recipes for Feeling Unstoppable offers quick and easy recipes that are simple but always deliver on flavor.

The book is filled with recipes that include easy swaps to fit anybody’s dietary needs as well as ideas for how to eat out while still understanding what your body needs. Trust Your Gut is a cookbook designed for anyone wanting to eat healthily but not compromise on taste.

Jennifer Fisher is the founder of a wide–ranging lifestyle brand that includes homewares in partnership with CB2, recipes, JF Salts, and the genre–defining jewelry she is known and loved for. She is based in New York City.

Katherine Power is a serial entrepreneur, CEO, and investor focused on building category-leading businesses. With a distinct talent for finding white space, Power has reimagined age-old industries with data-informed, digital-first business models built for the modern shopper. Power has founded four successful brands (Who What Wear, Versed, Avaline, MERIT), each of which speaks to her unique expertise around accessibility and ingredient efficacy. She is also a Partner at the seed-to-growth venture capital firm Greycroft.

Where: Diesel (in the Courtyard)

Date: Thursday the 30^th

Time: 6:30 pm

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

Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2025-10-30/jennifer-fisher-discusses-and-signs-trust-your-gut

Sarah Labrie will present and discussNo One Gets to Fall Apart

In this poignant memoir, as candid and indelible as The Glass Castle and Memorial Drive, a writer takes on the conflict between the love that binds us to home and the desire to escape it for good.

On a highway in Houston, Texas, Sarah LaBrie’s mother was found screaming at passing cars, terrified she would be murdered by invisible assailants. The diagnosis of schizophrenia that followed compelled Sarah to rethink her childhood, marked at turns by violence and all-consuming closeness.

Digging into the events that led to her mother’s break, Sarah traces her family history of mental illness, from the dysphoria that plagued her great-grandmother, a granddaughter of slaves, to her own experience with depression as a scholarship student at Brown. At the same time, she navigates a decades-long fixation on a novel she can’t finish but can’t abandon, her complicated feelings about her white partner, and a fraught friendship colored by betrayal.

Spanning the globe from Houston’s Third Ward to Paris to Tallinn and New York to Los Angeles, No One Gets to Fall Apart is an unflinching chronicle of one woman’s attempt to forge a new future through a better understanding of the past.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Thursday the 30^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2025-10-30/miranda-mellis-sarah-labrie-discuss-sign-crocosmia-and-no-one-gets-fall-apart

Romance Book Club: Ladies in Hating at Chevalier’s – In-Person Event

In October’s meeting participants will discuss Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vasti.

The setting is the Regency Era, with a delicious, steamy sapphic romance starring Lady Georgiana Cleeve and Catriona Lacey. Both are Gothic novelists (did I mention they’re RIVALS???), whose past works seem to be running dangerously similar in subject. So, when they come to a truce during a visit to a local rumored haunted manor, one has to wonder if their truce might turn into something more. With Georgiana hailing from the upper echelons of society and Cat being the daughter of the Cleeve’s former butler, the two will clash in this wonderful witty finale to Vasti’s Belvoir’s Library Trilogy. (Though it may be a trilogy, trust me that each book can be read as a standalone!)

Where: Chevalier’s

Date: Thursday the 30^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2025-10-30/romance-book-club-october

Lyrical Flames Event: Poetry, Comedy, Music. Open Mic at Five Star Bar, DTLA – In-Person Event

Join host Lida Parent Harris to welcome the featured guests at the October 30^th Lyrical Flames event at Five Star Bar, DTLA.

Anto Boghokian is an Armenian American actor, author, spoken word artist, and producer. He grew up in Kuwait, Lebanon, and landed in Glendale, Ca in1990 due to the Gulf War. He is the author of 1000 Hours: The Questions That Changed My Tomorrows.

PhiL N/A

Michelle Smith is a Writer of West Indian heritage. Raised by a devout Christian grandmother, writing came into her life by way of therapy and the exploration of healing. Best known for most recent collection of poetry and prose Wild Flowers.

Tony Bartolone, an actor, comedian and writer, is a founding member of two theatre companies in Los Angeles. Bartolone wrote, produced and starred in the feature length play, I Am Chris. Tony has done stand-up comedy at venues throughout LA, including The Comedy Store and The Ice House, and has also written for LA Theatre Review.

Brian Dunlap is a native Angeleño who still lives in Los Ángeles. He explores and captures the stories of Los Ángeles that are hidden in plain sight and that are at the intersection of race and place. He is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Los Angeles Literature, an independent online magazine that covers the Greater Los Ángeles literary community and the author of Concrete Paradise (Finishing Line Press, 2018).

Rosetales N/A

Where: Five Star Bar

Date: Thursday the 30^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3806 Main St., Los Angeles, CA 90012 

Celebrate Day of the Dead (Dia de Muertos) at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Join authors Gigi Blume, Annette Chavez Macias, Racquel Marie, and Jocelyn Soto for an author panel moderated by book content creator Dahlia De La Vega. They will discuss themes of love and grief in their novels.

See store website for details.

A book signing will follow the discussion.

RSVP: Ticketed event

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Thursday the 30^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Judd Apatow, in conversation with Marc Maron, will discuss his memoir Comedy Nerd: A Lifelong Obsession in Stories and Pictures.

An intimate, rollicking highly-visual memoir of a comedic genius that offers a rare glimpse into the creative life and inner workings of legendary director, producer Judd Apatow through never-before-seen photos, letters and behind-the-scenes stories.

Judd Apatow wrote and directed the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin (co-written with Steve Carell), Knocked Up, Funny People, and This Is 40; he directed Trainwreck; and his producing credits include Superbad, Bridesmaids, and Anchorman. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Leslie Mann, and their two daughters, Maude and Iris.

In the mid-eighties, a young, self-professed comedy nerd from Syosset, Long Island, named Judd Apatow took to the stage to perform his first standup routine—and survived. Over the coming decades, Apatow would translate his obsession for comedy into one of the most successful careers in Hollywood, through genre-defining films such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Bridesmaids, and This Is 40 and iconic series such as Girls and Freaks & Geeks. Through his solo work as well as his collaborations with fellow comedians Steve Carrell, Adam Sandler, Amy Schumer, and countless others, Apatow reshaped the landscape of American comedy.

In this revelatory scrapbook memoir, Apatow has pulled hundreds of personal photographs, letters, scripts, drafts, and paired them with never-before-told stories to create a unique-in-format, deeply-personal-in-tone account of a storied career. Spanning decades, Comedy Nerd takes us on Apatow’s lifelong journey of fandom, creativity, and obsession: from the exacting, relentless work that goes into cracking people up; surprising stories about our favorite comedians; and insights into how Apatow has managed to push the limits of his craft in an ever-evolving cultural landscape. It is a candid, joyful, and fascinating portrait of an artist and storyteller who has spent decades making us laugh.

RSVP for tickets.

Where: Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre at New Roads School

Date: Thursday, the 30^th

Time: 8 pm

Address: 3131 Olympic Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90404

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/judd-apatow-with-marc-maron-tickets-1554309313999

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

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

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

About the instructor:

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

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

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Friday the 31^st

Time: 8:30 am – 9:30 am

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

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 31^st

Time: 9:30 am

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website: ihttps://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/2025-10-31/weekly-pj-story-time

Slightly Spooky Storytime at Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Kids & Family Event

For those young ones brave enough to sit through a program filled with slightly spooky and slightly silly stories, songs, and more, a special treat will be your reward!

Where: Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Friday, the 31^st

Time: 11 am – 11:40 am

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/slightly-spooky-storytime-0

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 31^st

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com

Cellar Door Bookstore at Mundial Coffee Market Night: Dia de los Muertos at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will celebrate Dia de los Muertos at Mundial Coffee Market Night at Cellar Door.

Enjoy live Mariachi music, face painting, and shop small with 20+ local vendors, including Cellar Door.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore at Mundial Coffee Market Night

Date: Friday the 31^st

Time: 5 pm – 9 pm

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

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 NEXT WEEK 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 31^st

Time: 6 pm (Doors at 5:30 pm)

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Western Edge Writersat Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Writers and aspiring writers, join us for a group that supports writing endeavors of all genres: fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and memoir.

Please email eaglrk@lapl.org for the writing prompt.

Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday the 1^st

Time: 10 am

Address: 5027 Caspar Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90041 

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/western-edge-writers-1

Book Signing: at Children’s Book World: Suzanne and Max Lang & Archibald and the Furry Dinosaurs Picture Book Party – In-Person Event

Join Suzanne & Max Lang and special guests, Grumpy Monkey and Archibald! Saturday, November 1st at 10:30am.

Storytime, drawing activities, character photo ops, and lots of fun.

Where: Children’s Book World

Date: Saturday the 1^st

Time: 10:30 pm – 11:30 pm

Description:

:کتاب خود ا به اشتراک بگذارید

کتابی را که خواندید به دیگران هم معرفی کنید

تحلیل کتاب/ بحث و گفتگوی دوستانه

RSVP

Where: West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL 

Date: Saturday the 1^st

Time: 11 am – 12:30 pm

Address: 19036 Vanowen Street, Reseda, CA 91335

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

Middle School Book Club: The Star That Always Stays at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person MG Event.

Join us to discuss The Star That Always Stays by Anna Rose Johnson, in honor of Native American Heritage Week.

For ages 11 – 14.

Growing up on Beaver Island, Grand-père told Norvia stories—stories about her ancestor Migizi, about Biboonke-o-nini the Wintermaker, about the Crane Clan and the Reindeer Clan. He sang her songs in the old language, and her grandmothers taught her to make story quilts and maple candy. On the island, Norvia was proud of her Ojibwe heritage. Things are different in the city. Here, Norvia’s mother forces her to pretend she’s not Native at all—even to Mr. Ward, Ma’s new husband, and to Vernon, Norvia’s irritating new stepbrother. Despite the move, the upheaval, and the looming threat of world war, Norvia and her siblings—all five of them—are determined to make 1914 their best year ever. But how can she have the best year ever if she has to hide who she truly is?

Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date: Saturday the 1^st

Time: 11 am

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/14585346

Kids Storytime with Emily Rosen & Waiting for Max at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Kids Event

Join us to hear children’s book author Emily Rosen read and talk about her first book, Waiting for Max: A NICU Story. Inspired by her experience with her son Max in the NICU right here in Los Angeles, this book teaches older siblings, cousins and friends what goes on in the NICU through the eyes of one big sister with a BIG imagination. Come for a story time filled with hope, empathy and smiles, and the lesson that some things really are worth the wait.

Emily Rosen is a mom, a creative director, and a children’s book author. She’s built her career working for top advertising agencies and brands and strives to use her creativity for good. Inspired by her son Max’s time in the NICU, she wrote her first children’s book to help families like hers. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their two kids. Learn more at emilyrosencreative.com.

About the book:

Louise can’t wait to meet her new little brother, Max! But he was born earlier than expected and has to stay in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) until he’s strong enough to come home. Waiting is hard. Really hard. So big sister Louise uses her BIG imagination to come up with her own creative plans to get Max home.

Inspired by first-time author Emily Rosen’s personal experience with her son in the NICU, this lovingly crafted book is filled with rich illustrations, relatable details, and some much-needed smiles. A comforting read for parents, siblings, big cousins, friends––or even former NICU patients curious about their first experiences––this book helps navigate a challenging and often overlooked subject with warmth, empathy, and wonder. And at its heart is the reminder that no matter how long it takes, some things truly are worth the wait.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Saturday the 1^st

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Join LAPL’s Art Department for an online celebration of Jon Savage’s new book which tells an intertwined history of music, queerness and counterculture, from Little Richard to disco.

In conversation with Savage will be Brontez Purnell, musician and author of 2024’s Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt.

RSVP:

Complete this form or send an email to art@lapl.org for the Zoom link.

Where: Central Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday the 1^st

Time: 12 pm

Address: 1874 Hillhurst Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90027

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-36

Kids Graphic Novel Book Club: The Cartoonists Club at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event

Participants will discuss The Cartoonists Club by RainaTelgemeier and Scott McCloud.

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 co-creator 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 atgoraina.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 co-creator 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.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Saturday the 1^st

Time: 1 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/kids-graphic-novel-book-club-cartoonists-club

Heavy manner here

Hinches Press Poetry Reading: Adolfo Guzman Lopez & California Southern: writing from the road 1992-2025 at Pueblo Unido @ the Chicano Resource Center – In-Person Event.

“Pueblo Unido,” is a celebration of Latine poetry, Latinidad, and Adolfo Guzman-Lopez’s new poetry collection, California Southern. Please join us.

Where: Pueblo Unido @ the Chicano Resource Center

Date: Saturday the 1^st

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm

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

Each student will be able to print 30 copies of their zine on the riso to take home!

Materials will be provided by the instructor, but students are also welcome to bring their own materials and media.

Buy a ticket at website. RSVP

Date: Saturday the 1^st

Time: 3 pm

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

Website: https://heavymannerslibrary.com/events/risograph-mini-zine-workshop-11-1

Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Poetry Writing Workshop with Don Kingfisher Campbell – Online Zoom Event

A poetry Writing Workshop will be led by Don Kingfisher Campbell. (Submit up to 3 poems totaling no more than 150 lines including the subject of or at least mentioning face or feature for Four Feathers Press online edition: Face Features by emailing donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59 pm, November 21st)

Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.

Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry

Date: Saturday, the 1^st

Time: 3 pm – 4:40 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event

Website: https://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com

Storytime: Aria Mia Loberti & I Am Ingrid: The Adventures of the World’s Greatest Gide Dog at Once Upon a Time, Montrose – In-Person Kids & Family Event

Join us to meet author Aria Mia Loberti and Ingrid, the dog featured in her new book.

Signed by the author Aria Mia Loberti.

This funny, adorable picture book is based on the life of Ingrid, the real guide dog to actress, author, and UNICEF Ambassador Aria Mia Loberti!

Ingrid knows she is fabulous. She flies around the world with her person, Aria. Working as a team, they navigate everything from college classes and ancient ruins to movie sets and red carpets. And Ingrid never goes anywhere without her string of pearls. But before Ingrid was the best guide dog there ever was, she was just a small, black puppy with very big paws.

NOTE: Free to attend.

Where: Once Upon a Time, Montrose

Date: Saturday, the 1^st

Time: 4 pm

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/meet-aria-mia-loberti-ingrid

Garrett Hongo & Ocean of Clouds: Poems at Bel Canto at Miyako Hybrid Hotel – In-Person Event

Time: 5:30 pm – 7:30 PM

Address: 21381 S. Western Ave., Torrance, CA 90501 

Website: https://belcantobooks.net/events 

Monthly Open Mic with Reggie Peralta at LibroMobile. Santa Ana – In-Person Event

Whether you’re a poet, musician, storyteller, or just here to listen, this space is for you. Step up to the mic or come support local voices!

RSVP

Open Mic is held on 1^st Saturdays!

Where: LibroMobile Bookstore

Date: Saturday, the 1^st

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

Address: 1150 S. Bristol St., A3., Santa Ana, CA 92704

Website: https://www.libromobile.com/event-details/monthly-open-mic-with-reggie-peralta-2025-11-01-18-00

Book Event: Gina Darling, with Sara Cate, & My Dark Ever After at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Gina Darling, in conversation with Sara Cate, celebrates the release of her new mafia romance, My Dark Ever After, in paperback.

Participants will discuss Molly Malloy and the Angel of Death by Maria Vale.

Gina Darling takes readers back to Tuscany, where dark players and passions collide to reveal explosive secrets.

A book signing will follow.

This is a ticketed event. RSVP.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Saturday the 1^st

Time: 6 pm

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

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

Katherine Spearing & A Thousand Tiny Paper Cuts at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

This event is titled On Spiritual Abuse, and participants will be in conversation with author Katherine Spearing to discuss her book A thousand Tiny Paper Cuts.

Join us for a conversation on spiritual abuse and recovery with author and activist Katherine Spearing.

Get your tickets on EVENTBRITE.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Saturday the 1^st

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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 2^nd

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

Part anthem, part Victorian rock ballad, these lyrics document what it is like to be girl, doll, daughter, alive in times of atrocity in one’s homeland and one’s ancestral home.

Temperance Aghamohammadi is an Acolyte of the Exquisite. An Iranian American poet, medium, and critic, she is the author of Battalion Shaped Girl. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the New England Review, Passages North, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere.

Where: Stories Books & Café

Date: Sunday, the 2^nd

Time: 10 am – 7 pm (Confirm with venue)

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

In the vein of Grumpy Monkey and Unicorns Are the Worst!, this hilarious picture book introduces the adorable quokka, who—despite his ever-present smile—is definitely not as happy as he looks!

With its bright eyes, puffy cheeks, and beaming smile, the quokka is clearly the happiest animal on earth. Or is it? This quokka is here to tell you…he is not happy! At least not all the time. Just like everyone else, he can be sulky, or sorry, or sad; but you’d never know from the look on his face! So, what’s a moody marsupial to do when he’s being misunderstood? Teach every other animal from kangaroos to koalas.

Caroline L. Perry has always thought that Aussie animals are amazing, but a close encounter with a quokka made her the happiest human on Earth. Born in the UK, Caroline hopped around several countries before settling in Los Angeles, California. When she isn’t working on her children’s books and volunteering as a kids’ writing coach, she spends her time planning adventures with her Kiwi-Aussie husband and their three mini-marsupials, who can always turn her frown upside down. Caroline is the author of The Corgi and the Queen, I Am Not Happy!, and several forthcoming books for young readers. Say “g’day” at CarolineLPerry.com.

Sydney Hanson is the illustrator of Construction Cat by Barbara Odanaka, and I Am Not Happy! by Caroline L. Perry. She was raised in Minnesota alongside numerous pets and brothers. When she wasn’t tunneling through snowdrifts or rescuing frogs from rain gutters, she was drawing. Her illustrations and paintings still reflect these early adventures and are marked by a love for animals and the natural world. She lives in Los Angeles where she’s worked for several animation shops. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling and spending time outside with her adopted brother, a Labrador retriever named Cash. not to judge a critter by its cover!

Date: Sunday the 2^nd

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-11-02/caroline-l-perry-sydney-hanson

Mystery Book Club at West Los Angeles Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

We meet on the first Sunday of each month to discuss a mystery, thriller, or suspense book picked by the group. For current titles, please contact the West LA Library at westla@lapl.org or 310-575-8323.

Where: West Los Angeles Regional Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Sunday the 2^nd

Time: 2 pm – 4 pm

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

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

Reading Willa Cather: American Voice at Wende Museum, Culver City – In-Person Event

Willa Cather was one of the most singular American novelists of the 20th century. She broke new ground as an artist by emphasizing ordinary lives and struggles, lending dignity and significance to her characters’ inner worlds. Behind the appearance of serenity in her stories, however, stands a complex writer of conflict who was doubtful of even the possibility of knowing anything for certain.

Join LA-based actors Linda Bisesti and Matthew Reidy for an afternoon of selections from Willa Cather’s fiction, criticism, and letters.

“The end is nothing, the road is all.” – Willa Cather, Old Mrs. Harris

Where: Wende Museum

Date: Sunday the 2^nd

Time: 2 pm – 3:30 pm

Address: 10808 Culver Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90230

Website: https://wendemuseum.org/event/reading-willa-cather-american-voice/

Kim Luper, with Danny Reid, & Pre-Code Essentials: Must-See Cinema from Hollywood’s Untamed Era, 1930-1934 (Turner Classic Movies) at Book Soup – In-Person Event

From Turner Classic Movies and the creators of @precodedotcom, this is the essential film-by-film guide to must-see cinema from the pre-Code era—a wild and wonderful time in Hollywood history before strict enforcement of a censorship code that ruled moviemaking for decades.

With unparalleled freedom in the Golden Age of Hollywood, movies produced during the “pre-Code” era between 1930 and 1934 boldly confronted a wide range of provocative subjects, including sexual freedom, the glorification of outlaws, racial taboos, and class consciousness. Films of the period include beloved classics like Grand Hotel (1932) and King Kong (1933) but also lesser-known gems like I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) and Ann Vickers (1933). These films, produced at the height of the Great Depression, pushed the limits of contemporary social norms at a time when Hollywood studios were desperate to attract audiences—by any means necessary. Pre-Code Essentials invites modern readers to engage with that history while diving deep into movies that remain, as they were then, adventurous and uncompromising.

Kim Luperi wrote her undergraduate thesis on the censorship battle of Baby Face (1933) and never looked back. Currently, she curates the @precodedotcom Instagram account and is a freelance writer for TCM. She’s written for AFI Fest, the American Cinematheque, and MovieMaker Magazine and covers classic film screenings at ISeeADarkTheater.com. Kim lives with her partner in sunny Los Angeles.

Danny Reid is a librarian who has been writing about pre-Code Hollywood for over a decade at pre-Code.com. His published writing includes Murder on Celluloid: A Companion to the Hildegarde Withers Film Series and acting as editor for the essay collection Thoughts on the Thin Man. Danny has introduced pre-Code film screenings around the world and appeared on podcasts to discuss the era. He currently lives in Germany with his wife, two kids, and three very silly dogs.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Sunday the 2^nd

Time: 3 pm

Address: 8818 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood, CA 90069

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2025-11-02/kim-luperi-discusses-signs-pre-code-essentials-must-see-cinema-hollywoods-untamed

Garrett Hongo will read from and sign Oceans of Clouds: Poems.

In his fourth book of poems, award-winning poet Garrett Hongo sees coastlines and waters, skylines, and ancestral lines for what they inspire and teach.

In a surpassingly beautiful collection of poems, with his characteristic long-lined, rolling music, Hongo is alert to the possibilities of individual moments of perception and grace in the landscapes of his life, whether waiting for a ferry in Balboa after a writing workshop (“An oil slick from a yacht…/Spread rainbows on the water, an aleph/curving toward us”) or hanging out and playing LPs with the late, great poet Michael Harper, or watching his daughter in the sun with a halo of messy twelve-year-old’s hair, or listening to the sea, which speaks to him in so many places: at the Wai’ōpae Tidepools, at Cassis, at Divi Bay in Saint Martin, where, he tells us, “I thought of writing to the soul of Nâzim Hikmet,/saying loving a woman was like writing a book—/…it is love’s body on which you write a page of kisses…”

These poems of cloudy moons and sandstone cliffsides, the black glass of lava shattered into sands, waves surging, and stories of a poet’s gratitude for the journey he has made, come together to make a paean against forgetting.

Robin Coste Lewis will read from and sign Archive of Desire: A Poem in Four Parts for C.P. Cavafy.

The National Book Award, PEN/Voelcker Award, and NAACP Image Award winner returns with another inventive and boundary-breaking book: a sensual journey ignited in the archives of iconic queer Alexandrian poet C. P. Cavafy.

As in all Lewis’s works, here she reaches across centuries to express what is timeless and not bound by our current moment or our single selves: the discipline and glory of art, the give-and-take of love, the kiss that lives in the moment, and the unfolding journey of being human, whose contours become clear only with the passage of time, the igniting of memory, and the words we find to describe the journey.

Date: Sunday the 2^nd

Time: 4 pm – 5 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-11-02/garrett-hongo-robin-coste-lewis

LiveTalks LA Presents: Annie Lennox, with Lori Majewski, & Annie Lennox: Retrospective at Robert Frost Auditorium – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Annie Lennox, in conversation with Lori Majewski, will discuss Annie Lennox: Retrospective.

A long-awaited visual memoir from Annie Lennox, a legend of popular music and culture. This is the award-winning artist’s first and only official book—destined to be the must-have title for music lovers and will command attention from the fashion and photography worlds.

Since her emergence at the outset of the 1980s as one half of Eurythmics and on through the course of a sensational solo career, Annie Lennox has gifted pop culture some of its most memorable and indelible images and sounds. Made in close collaboration with Lennox herself, Retrospective beautifully gathers together over 200 images, some created by celebrated photographers such as Richard Avedon, Paolo Roversi, Bettina Rheims and Ellen von Unwerth, interspersed with song lyrics and personal anecdotes to provide a fascinating insight into aspects of Annie Lennox’s life as a performer, song-writer and creative force.

Lori Majewski is a veteran music journalist and on-air host at SiriusXM. She is author of Mad World: An Oral History of the New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s. She is also a former magazine editor (Entertainment Weekly, Teen People, Us Weekly). As a writer, she’s contributed to The Hollywood Reporter, Los Angeles Magazine, the Guardian, Rolling Stone, Variety and Women’s Health, and has appeared on CNN, the BBC, Today, Good Morning America, and in numerous documentaries.

Ticketed event. RSVP

Where: Robert Frost Auditorium

Date: Sunday the 2^nd

Time: 4 pm

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

Where: Casitas Bookstore

Date: Sunday the 2^nd

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

Join us for our monthly Writers Group event, held on the first Sunday of every month.

Bring paper and a pen, bring your laptop, bring a prompt to share, bring a project to work on or just come prepared to free write among other writers, and perhaps exchange projects and feedback!

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Sunday the 2^nd

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

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

Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-mabtzxoz-1762131600000

Sunday Jump Open Mic & Featured Guests at Pilipino Workers Center in Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles – In-Person Event

We invite everyone to our last open mic event of the 13th season of Sunday Jump at the Pilipino Workers Center in Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles! On November 2nd from 5 – 7 pm, we’ll be celebrating the end of another successful season with performances and good vibes. You definitely won’t want to miss it! Open mic sign-ups start at 4:30 pm and will be a lottery based system to ensure fair chances for all.

Our theme this season is: Time Check ⏱️ Living for the day is a call to be present. We define the meaning of who we are by seizing the gift of today. Opportunities come and go, and sometimes pass by without us acting on it. While tomorrow is not promised, this moment is yours to make.

Through the content of his work, award winning Los Angeles based Poet, Music Producer and Activist, Christopher Siders, encourages his audience members to think critically about social norms and how we subconsciously affect one another through our everyday behaviors. Within his own experiences as an activist, he is able to share his successes and failures, and guide future activists at any institution, to make positive decisions for the community to flourish and teach students to become a better ally for movements or areas of interest. Siders graduated from California State University Monterey Bay with a B.A. in Human Communications with a concentration in Creative Writing and Social Action. Siders is the co-creator of the original hip-hop musical “Silhouettes of Scarlet.”

@perhaps.japanese, food

@sweetdreamsbakingco, dessert

@nicasnecessities, merch

@buildingpress.co, resident merch

@urbantropicals_la, resident plant vendor

@neighborhoodlandtrust, community spotlight

Where: Pilipino Workers Center

Date: Sunday the 2^nd

Time: 5 pm – 7 pm