The workshop is a unique pedagogical approach to giving oneself permission in finding poetic voice and building confidence in performance of your writing. This workshop will be instructed by poet, journalist, and screenwriter Erin Taylor.

The theme for this workshop will be Forgiveness

Hosted by Erin Taylor

https://erintaylorisalive.com

Tickets at website.

Where: Heavy Manners Library

Date: Monday the23^rd

Time: 6 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://heavymannerslibrary.com/events/permission-poetics-poetry-workshop-instructed-by-erin-taylor-3-23

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

Join us to discuss The Women by author Kristin Hannah.

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets, and becomes one of the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.

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

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: Sherman Oaks Martin Pollard Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 23^rd

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/sherman-oaks-book-club-women-kristin-hannah

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

All readers are welcome to join our book club; no sign-up is necessary. To find out about each month’s title, please get in touch with the branch. Copies of the book can be checked out at the Reference Desk.

Where: Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 23^rd

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: 12006 Venice Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90066

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

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 23^rd

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92501

Website: https://www.facebook.com

Alone and adrift in Barcelona, an unnamed narrator is haunted by the death of her teenage brother, Diego. Diego, the little boy she helped raise in Mexico while their mother struggled to make a living in Spain. Diego, who loved Vampire Weekend and dreamed of becoming a pilot. Diego, who hated Madrid as much as she did.

Now, his ashes in hand, she must return to Mexico. Plagued by memories, she recounts their young lives leading up to tragedy in blistering detail: the acute loneliness that accompanied their emigration; the siblings’ first separation, when she left for Barcelona to make her own way in the world; her activism against labor abuses, which is threatened by her tumultuous relationship with an entitled lover; and the final, heavyhearted confrontation with her brother. Caught between rage and heartbreak over the loss of Diego, she pieces together a story of alienation, but also of surprising courage and hope.

Masterfully translated by National Book Award winner Megan McDowell, and shot through with flashes of dark humor, Eating Ashes boldly confronts both the intimate and systemic struggles faced by migrants striving to build a life worth living. Already an international sensation across Europe, this novel cements Brenda Navarro as a breathtakingly unique and vital voice in literature.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Monday the 23^rd

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-03-23/brenda-navarro

Book Launch: Vivian Jia Lac, with Julie Tieu, & Casually Yours at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

To celebrate the release of Casually Yours, Vivian Jia Lac, in conversation with Julie Tieu, will disc her debut romance.

A booth signing with the authors will follow this ticketed event.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Monday the 23^rd

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

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

At Skylight: Monica Ferrell, with Natalie Shapiro, & The Future (Paperback) at Skylight Books – In-Person Event

Monica Ferrell, in conversation with Natalie Shapiro, will present and discuss The Future (Paperback),a book about time.

The tender, vulnerable, and bitingly funny poems of Monica Ferrell’s third collection confront the hours as they stream by, our relatively brief lives that feel so long while we are living them, successive generations and the unwinding story of our species, and the bewilderingly vast geological age of the planet. Traveling across eras, through ice ages to the eighteenth century and the modern day of Ozempic and chatbots, these poems also square up to the obscurity of what comes next as they peer forward into time still to come.

At once irreverent yet elegant, sophisticated yet conversational, these poems capture what it means to get by day to day in a 21st century destabilized by ecological collapse, political havoc, and the incursion of technology into our most private and intimate spaces. “Every day I wake up,” Ferrell writes, “and ask, is it today? The volcano?” Restless in their imaginative scope, these poems leap across the world, from the enduring statues at Angkor Wat and Hampi to Alpine meadows contaminated with plastic to a supermarket in Vermont. Without papering over any of the difficulties we face today, Ferrell nonetheless expands our capacity to wonder, especially about the experience of motherhood, how the future keeps finding a way of breaking through.

This book manifests as that impossible, unimaginable collision that annihilates the world as we thought it was and sees it emerge as pure energy. Ferrell includes us in “the bequest of this battered planet, this sweetly belabored thing,” from one generation to the next, reminding us of the genesis contained inside obliteration: “one November night I too once opened my eyes to the bright.”

Monica Ferrell is the author of a novel and three books of poetry, including the forthcoming The Future (2026); You Darling Thing (2018), a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and the Believer Book Award in Poetry; and Beasts for the Chase (2008), winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize and a finalist for the Asian American Writers Workshop Prize in Poetry. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, American Poetry Review, A Public Space, Paris Review, Ploughshares, The Baffler, The Yale Review, and Poem-a-Day, and have been widely anthologized, most recently in A Century of Poetry in the New Yorker and The Penguin Book of Indian Poets. Born in New Delhi, she lives in Vermont.

Natalie Shapero’s latest book is Stay Dead, longlisted for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. Natalie’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The London Review of Books, The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, The Nation, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles and teaches writing at UC Irvine.

RSVP

Where: Skylight Books

Date: Monday the 23^rd

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-monica-ferrell-presents-future-w-natalie-shapero

Ticketed Book Signing will sign her new book Getting Naked: Valerie Bertinelli & Getting Naked at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Valerie Bertinelli will sign here new book Getting Naked, her most vulnerable book yet offering wisdom hard-won through divorce, menopause, and generational pain, with a powerful message of self-acceptance and embracing the past with compassion.

With her signature warmth and disarming humor, the beloved actress and New York Times bestselling author strips away the polished façade and shares what it’s really like to grow older, love harder, and start over. Now in her mid-sixties, Valerie reflects on the hard-won lessons of aging, self-worth, and letting go. From her experiences with menopause, relationships, and family trauma, she writes with clarity and compassion about the insecurities that have haunted her for decades: shame and anxiety about her body, and the false belief that her value depended on perfection. Through it all, Valerie reflects on the quiet, daily work of self-acceptance, the kind that doesn’t make headlines but changes lives. Getting Naked isn’t just a story of survival. It’s a reckoning—with her past, her family history, and the generational pain that shaped her. It’s about the myths we believe when we’re young—about beauty, love, success—and how we carry them until they break us open. It’s about unlearning the script that says women must please, endure, and stay silent.

The result is a deeply personal, unexpectedly funny, and profoundly uplifting look at the inner journey we all share. Getting Naked isn’t about vulnerability for vulnerability’s sake. It’s about finally letting go of the need to be perfect, quieting the harsh inner critic, and choosing compassion over judgment. After all, it’s never too late to make peace with yourself and to fall madly in love with the perfectly imperfect person you already are.

RSVP

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Monday the 23^rd

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-03-23/valerie-bertinelli

Monday Night Fiction Workshop with Raquel Baker at 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

Date: Monday the 23^rd

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)

Website: https://beyondbaroque.org

Writers Bloc: A Celebration of Jane Austen at The Ebell – In-Person Event

This It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. It is a truth similarly acknowledged that a reader in possession of a Jane Austen novel must be in for a great time.

It’s little wonder that Pride and Prejudice is still one of the most beloved books of the past 225 years. What draws filmmakers time and again to make and remake adaptations of her novels? See for yourselves as four wonderful actors read scenes from Jane Austen’s timeless work.

Actor Andrew Borba has appeared in dozens of film and television shows, including Taken 3, Interstellar, Shameless, and Straight Outta Compton.

John Ross Bowie appeared in Shameless, The Big Bang Theory, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and countless other shows. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed memoir No Job for a Man.

British actor Lucy Davenport appeared in the UK stage adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, and played Lydia and Elizabeth Bennet, in addition to television and film roles including Dinner for Shmucks, Roe V. Wade, and others.

Kerry O’Malley is a film and television actor whose credits include A Man on the Inside, Nightbitch, David Fincher’s The Killer, and so many more.

Limited parking onsite. We recommend rideshares and carpooling. Please allow time to find parking.

Ticket Info

Purchase your tickets via Eventbrite.

Where: The Ebell

Date: Monday the 23^rd

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Address: Enter at: 741 South Lucerne Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90005

Website: https://www.ebellofla.org/events/writers-bloc-a-celebration-of-jane-austen

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

Do you want to find creative inspiration and overcome writer’s block in a supportive and peaceful community setting? Are you interested in writing professionally or for personal growth and healing but unsure where to begin?

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: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com

NEW! Toddler Tuesdays: A Travelin’ Storytime – Session 1 at Main Library, SMPL – In-Person Kids Event

This fun and engaging weekly series of stories, songs, and rhymes travels to different library locations. Limited space; first come, first served. For ages walking – 3 years.

Where: Main Library, SMPL

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11 am

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

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

Author Talk: Rehab: An American Scandal with Shoshana Walter, in conversation with Barbara Kingsolver, via Virtual Program, LACL – Online Event

Join us to hear author Shoshana Walker, in conversation with author Barbara Kingsolver, discuss Rehab: An American Scandal.

Today, more people have access to treatment than ever before. So why isn’t it working? The answer is that in America, where anyone can get addicted, only certain people get a real chance to recover. Despite record numbers of overdose deaths, our default response is still to punish, while rehabs across the United States fail to incorporate scientifically proven strategies and exploit patients.

In this book, you’ll find the stories of four people who represent the failures of the rehab-industrial complex, and the ways our treatment system often prevents recovery. April is a black mom in Philadelphia, who witnessed firsthand how the government’s punitive response to the crack epidemic impeded her mother’s recovery, and then her own. Chris, a young middle-class white man from Louisiana, received more opportunities in his addiction than April, including the chance to go to treatment instead of prison. Yet the only program the judge permitted was one that forced him to perform unpaid back-breaking labor at for-profit companies. Wendy is a mother from a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles, whose son died in a sober living home. She began investigating for-profit treatment program: yet law enforcement and regulators routinely ignored her warnings, allowing rehab patients to die, again and again. Larry is a surgeon who himself struggled with addiction, and would eventually become one of the first Suboxone prescribers in the nation, drawing the scrutiny of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Be sure to register now to participate in this urgent conversation and learn insight on how we might fix the system to save lives.

Shoshana Walter is a reporter for the Marshall Project covering the criminal justice system. Her reporting has been honored as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Selden Ring, and she has won the Knight Award for Public Service, the Edward R. Murrow Award, and the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. She started her work on the treatment system at The Center for Investigative Reporting, where her work appeared in The New York Times Magazine, in newspapers, and on NPR stations across the country. She is based in Oakland, California.

Barbara Ellen Kingsolver is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, essayist, and poet. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a nonfiction account of her family’s attempts to eat locally. In 2023, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel Demon Copperhead. Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity, and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments.

Where: Virtual Program, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15598634

Virtual Book Club: Skylark by Paula McLain via La Crescenta Library, LACL – Online Event

Join us for the Virtual Book Club. In March we will be discussing ‘Skylark’ by Paula McLain in honor of Women’s History Month. For adults.

This historical novel tells the dual-timeline story of Alouette Voland, a lawyer imprisoned in 1664 Paris, and Kristof Larson, a medical student in 1939 Nazi-occupied Paria, highlighting themes of resistance and courage across centuries.

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

Each week we will read and discuss 1/5 of the book. Please see the weekly discussion breakdown below.

Week 4: March 24: Chapters 56–75 — Pages 281–365

Week 5: March 31: Chapters 76–Epilogue — Pages 369 to the end of the book

Where: La Crescenta Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)

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

NEW! Toddler Tuesdays: A Travelin’ Storytime – Session 2 at Main Library, SMPL – In-Person Kids Event

This fun and engaging weekly series of stories, songs, and rhymes travels to different library locations. Limited space; first come, first served. For ages walking – 3 years.

Where: Main Library SMPL

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 11:30 am – 12 pm

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

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

Bestsellers Book Club: The First Ladies at Stephenson Ranch Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us and enjoy a lively book discussion on this Bestseller book selection: The First Ladies by Marie Benedict. For adults.

The daughter of formerly enslaved parents, Mary McLeod Bethune refuses to back down as white supremacists attempt to thwart her work. She marches on as an activist and an educator, and as her reputation grows she becomes a celebrity, revered by titans of business and recognized by U.S. Presidents. Eleanor Roosevelt herself is awestruck and eager to make her acquaintance. Initially drawn together because of their shared belief in women’s rights and the power of education, Mary and Eleanor become fast friends confiding their secrets, hopes and dreams, and holding each other’s hands through tragedy and triumph.

Where: Stephenson Ranch Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 12 pm – 1 pm

Address: 25950 The Old Rd., Stevenson Ranch, CA 91381

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15873336

Agoura Readers Book Club: Sandwich at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss Catherine Newman’s Sandwich. For adults.

Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

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

The event will be held on March 24th at 5pm in the pages courtyard.

While the event is free to attend, purchasing a copy of Ape Escape from pages is required to join the signing line. Any books purchased in the store on the day of the event will also be signed, but only two additional books brought from home can be signed. We hope you enjoy celebrating Stuart’s newest release in his FunJungle series!

More about the book: Ape Escape

In the tenth novel in New York Times bestselling author Stuart Gibbs’s FunJungle series, super sleuth Teddy Fitzroy is on the case to rescue an abducted young gorilla!

When a baby gorilla is stolen from an orphanage in Rwanda, Teddy, his parents, and an old family friend find themselves in a race against time to save it. Teddy has to piece together clues to figure out where the little ape is being taken while traveling through some of the most incredible—and dangerous—terrain in the world.

At the same time, he’s long-distance consulting with Summer to help solve another mystery back at FunJungle. Between facing down lions on the Serengeti and chasing poachers through the bazaars of Zanzibar, will Teddy be able to find the baby gorilla before it’s too late?

Stuart Gibbs is the New York Times bestselling author of the Charlie Thorne series, FunJungle series, Moon Base Alpha series, Once Upon a Tim series, and Spy School series. He has written screenplays, worked on a whole bunch of animated films, developed TV shows, been a newspaper columnist, and researched capybaras. Stuart lives with his family in Los Angeles. You can learn more about what he’s up to at StuartGibbs.com.

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 5:30 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2026-03-24/special-author-event-stuart-gibbs

Library Loud & Clear: Open Mic Night at Exposition Park – Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Do you have a song in your heart, a poem on your mind, or a story to tell? Step into the spotlight at Library Loud & Clear, our quarterly open mic night. Whether you’re a seasoned performer or taking the stage for the very first time, this is your chance to share your talents in a welcoming and supportive environment. All forms of creative expression are encouraged: poetry, spoken word, acoustic music, comedy, storytelling, and more.

Each performer gets 8 minutes to share their work. Our stage is equipped with a basic sound system and a microphone. Acoustic performances are highly encouraged. This event is free and open to all ages; however, we kindly request that the content be suitable for a general audience. Join us to share your voice or simply enjoy an evening of community and creativity. We can’t wait to hear what you’ve got!

Where: Exposition Park – Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Regional Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 3900 S. Western Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90062

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/library-loud-clear-open-mic-night-1

Hooked on Books Book Club: Atmosphere: A Love Story at Quartz Hill Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us to read and discuss Atmosphere: A Love Story, by Taylor Jenkins Reid. For adults. Copies are available at the Customer Service desk and newcomers are always welcome!

Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.

Where: Quartz Hill Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 5040 West Avenue M, Quartz Hill, CA 93536

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15684770

Phy-Sci Book Club: A Brief History of Intelligence at Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, AI, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains, by Max S. Bennett.

In the last decade, capabilities of artificial intelligence that had long been the realm of science fiction have, for the first time, become our reality. AI is now able to produce original art, identify tumors in pictures, and even steer our cars. And yet, large gaps remain in what modern AI systems can achieve—indeed, human brains still easily perform intellectual feats that we can’t replicate in AI systems. How is it possible that AI can beat a grandmaster at chess but can’t effectively load a dishwasher? As AI entrepreneur Max Bennett compellingly argues, finding the answer requires diving into the billion-year history of how the human brain evolved; a history filled with countless half-starts, calamities, and clever innovations. Not only do our brains have a story to tell—the future of AI may depend on it.

Now, in A Brief History of Intelligence, Bennett bridges the gap between neuroscience and AI to tell the brain’s evolutionary story, revealing how understanding that story can help shape the next generation of AI breakthroughs. Deploying a fresh perspective and working with the support of many top minds in neuroscience, Bennett consolidates this immense history into an approachable new framework, identifying the “Five Breakthroughs” that mark the brain’s most important evolutionary leaps forward

Endorsed and lauded by many of the top neuroscientists in the field today, Bennett’s work synthesizes the most relevant scientific knowledge and cutting-edge research into an easy-to-understand and riveting evolutionary story. With sweeping scope and stunning insights, A Brief History of Intelligence proves that understanding the arc of our brain’s history can unlock the tools for successfully navigating our technological future.

Max Bennett is an entrepreneur and researcher. He has cofounded multiple AI companies, holds several patents for AI technologies, and has published numerous scientific papers on the topics of evolutionary neuroscience and intelligence. He has been featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list as well as the Built In NYC’s 30 Tech Leaders Under 30. Most notably, Bennett was the cofounder and Chief Product Offi­cer of Bluecore, one of the fastest growing companies in the U.S., providing AI technologies to some of the largest companies in the world. Bluecore has been featured in the annual Inc. 500 fastest growing com­panies, as well as Glassdoor’s 50 best places to work in the U.S. Bluecore was recently valued at over $1 bil­lion. Bennett graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, summa cum laude, with a degree in economics and mathematics.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://cellardoorbookstore.com/event/2026-03-24/phy-sci-book-club-brief-history-intelligence

The Mystery Book Club: The Long Drop at Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us for a lively discussion of The Long Drop by Denise Mina. All are welcome!

Where: Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 24^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-55

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

Join us as we discuss The Names by Florence Knapp. Ask for your copy of the book and the discussion questions at the Customer Service Desk. For adults.

“A dazzling debut that asks: Can a name shape the course of a life? In the wake of an enormous, history-making storm, Cora sets off with her nine-year-old daughter, Maia, to register her son’s birth. Her husband Gordon, a local doctor, respected in the community but a terrifying and controlling presence at home, intends for her to follow his family tradition going back generations, and name the child Gordon. But on the journey there, Cora wonders if it’s right to impose the burden of this name and its legacy for her tiny newborn son. She herself has Julian in mind, and Maia offers up her own suggestion: Bear. What follows are three alternate and alternating versions of both Cora’s life and her young son’s life shaped by her brave, last-minute choice of name. Spanning thirty-five years, the novel draws us in from the first page, as we follow three unforgettable journeys of one young man, but also his mother, grandmother, and sister. In richly layered prose, The Names explores the painful ripple effects of domestic abuse, the messy ties of family, and the possibilities of autonomy and healing. With exceptional sensitivity and depth, Knapp draws us into the story of one family told through a prism of what-ifs, and shows us what we each can do with the “one precious life” we are given. The Names’ brilliantly imaginative structure and storytelling, and the emotional, gut-wrenching power of the book itself, are certain to make it a modern classic.” Provided by publisher.

Where: La Crescenta Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:45 pm

Address: 2809 Foothill Blvd., La Crescenta-Montrose, CA 91214

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15890193

Agoura Readers Book Club: A Marriage at Sea at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – Online Event

Join us virtually to discuss Catherine Newman’s A Marriage at Sea. For adults.

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

Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15684774

Felicia Day, with Leigh Bardugo, & The Lost Daughter of Sparta at Diesel, A Bookstore– In-Person Event

Join us as we welcome Felicia Day to discuss and sign The Lost Daughter of Sparta. Joining her in conversation will be Leigh Bardugo.

Helen of Troy. Clytemnestra. Timandra. Three sisters, infamously cursed by the goddess Aphrodite to betray their husbands, are known the world over. But few know about the fourth sister: Philonoe. Lost to historical record, all we know from ancient texts is that she avoided the curse placed on her family, and was granted immortality by the goddess Artemis. But why and how did this happen? Now, Felicia Day is determined to bring Philonoe to vivid life and fill in the missing pieces with this graphic novel retelling. Her story is a traditional hero’s journey with a feminist twist. Born as both a Spartan princess and with a wine-stain birthmark on her face, Philonoe is destined for a different fate than her sisters. Her remarkable but overlooked life is finally revealed in this clever and engaging graphic novel that is perfect for fans of The Palace of Eros and Lore Olympus.

Felicia Day is a prolific multi-hyphenate. She’s the New York Times bestselling author of You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) and the creativity book Embrace Your Weird, and she recently wrote the Audible series Third Eye, which won the 2024 Audie Award for Best Audio Drama. She has appeared as an actor in numerous television shows, including Supernatural, Eureka, and The Magicians, and she can be heard as a voice actor in such shows as Adventure Time and Monster High. Perhaps best known for her work in the web-video world, Felicia costarred in the Emmy-winning internet musical sensation Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. She also created and starred in the seminal series The Guild, which ran for six seasons, won numerous awards for excellence, and spawned a hit comic book series with Dark Horse. Recently, her costume from The Guild was added to the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, representing her success as a woman in a male- dominated field.

With her former digital company Geek and Sundry, Felicia produced dozens of shows, including Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop and the RPG sensation Critical Role. Currently, she streams, writes, and acts for her audience of six million fans across socials, even as she attempts to slow down, now that she’s a mother. (She is failing at it, badly.) Lost Daughter of Sparta is her graphic novel debut.

Leigh Bardugo is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Familiar, Ninth House and the creator of the Grishaverse (now a Netflix original series) which spans the Shadow and Bone trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, the King of Scars duology, and much more. Her short fiction has appeared in multiple anthologies including The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. She lives in Los Angeles and is an associate fellow of Pauli Murray College at Yale University. For information on new releases and appearances, sign up for Leigh’s newsletter.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2026-03-24/felicia-day-lost-daughter-sparta

Sci-Fi Fantasy Book Club: Frankenstein 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. Hope to see ya there!

This month’s pick is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://villagewell.com

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

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

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

Free event. 21+

Note: Please RSVP at site.

Where: The Aftermath Bar

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 10 pm

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Jill Wintersteen & Spirit Daughter: Own Your Power, Change Your Life at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Jill Wintersteen will present and discuss Spirit Daughter: Own Your Power, Change Your Life.

From the founder of the online community Spirit Daughter, a chronicle of her journey from academic researcher to spiritual teacher, offering readers a road map through the territory of transformation that begins when life falls apart.

Filled with practical tools and insights to navigate life’s challenges and emphasizing the importance of intuition and self-awareness, Spirit Daughter is an invitation to rediscover your power. Through her own experiences of overcoming anxiety, depression, and self-doubt, Wintersteen reveals how to create calmness within, no matter what is happening externally, and unlock your highest potential.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Facilitated by Mark Polak

Participants will discuss the March selection, Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser.

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Prairie Fires comes a terrifying true-crime history of serial killers in the Pacific Northwest and beyond—a gripping investigation of how a new strain of psychopath emerged out of a toxic landscape of deadly industrial violence

Caroline Fraser grew up in the shadow of Ted Bundy, the most notorious serial murderer of women in American history, surrounded by his hunting grounds and mountain body dumps, in the brooding landscape of the Pacific Northwest. But in the 1970s and ’80s, Bundy was just one perpetrator amid an uncanny explosion of serial rape and murder across the region. Why so many? Why so weirdly and nightmarishly gruesome? Why the senseless rise and then sudden fall of an epidemic of serial killing?

As Murderland indelibly maps the lives and careers of Bundy and his infamous peers in mayhem—the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, even Charles Manson—Fraser’s Northwestern death trip begins to uncover a deeper mystery and an overlapping pattern of environmental destruction. At ground zero in Ted Bundy’s Tacoma stood one of the most poisonous lead, copper, and arsenic smelters in the world, but it was hardly unique in the West. As Fraser’s investigation inexorably proceeds, evidence mounts that the plumes of these smelters not only sickened and blighted millions of lives but also warped young minds, including some who grew up to become serial killers.

A propulsive nonfiction thriller, Murderland transcends true-crime voyeurism and noir mythology, taking readers on a profound quest into the dark heart of the real American berserk.

Caroline Fraser is the author of Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which won the Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Heartland Prize, and the Plutarch Award for best biography of the year. She is also the author of God’s Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, and her writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Los Angeles Times, and London Review of Books, among other publications. She lives in New Mexico.

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2026-03-24/nonfiction-book-club

Benjamin Stevenson, with Jordy Moblo, & Everyone in This Bank Is a Thief (Ernest Cunningham Mysteries #4) at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Benjamin Stevenson, in conversation with Jordy Moblo, will discuss Everyone in This Bank Is a Thief (Ernest Cunningham Mysteries #4).

Ten heists. Ten suspects. A murder mystery only Ernest Cunningham can solve in this delightfully clever and twisty new novel in Benjamin Stevenson’s bestselling series—perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Anthony Horowitz.

I’ve spent the last few years solving murders. But a bank heist is a new one, even for me. I’ve never been a hostage before.

The doors are chained shut. No one in or out. Which means that when someone in the bank is murdered, everyone is a suspect.

Turns out, more than one person planned to rob the bank today. You can steal more from a bank than just money.

Who is stealing what? Are they willing to kill for it? And can I solve the crime before the police kick down the door and rescue us?

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Tuesday the 24^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-04-24/benjamin-stevenson

The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rick Lupert presents Ellen Thea – Online Zoom Event

Cobalt Poets Reading & Open Mic and host Rick Lupert welcomes featured poet Ellen Thea.

Ellen Thea is a multi-talented pioneer in integrative healing arts for more than sixty years. An award-winning performance poet, mixed media artist and holistic counselor, her work is multi-faceted, cross- and inter- disciplinary.

Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event

Date: Tuesday, the 24^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Address: Online event (see site)

Website: https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com

Da Poetry Lounge: Open Mic Night at COC – COMMUNITY OWNED CENTER in Leimert Park – In-Person Event

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

$10 suggested donation. Pay what you can. Do NOT line up prior to 7:30 pm Free parking adjacent to the theater.

Masks are encouraged.

Where: COC – COMMUNITY OWNED CENTER, New Leimert Park Location

Date: Tuesday, the 24^th

Time: 9 pm – 11 pm (Doors at 8:15 pm)

Address: 4276 Crenshaw Blvd., Leimert Park, CA 90008

PARKING:

Street parking: Crenshaw and Degnan

Parking Lot: 3416 W 43rd St Leimert Park, Los Angeles, CA 90008

Website: https://www.instagram.com  

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

Come write with us!

Many people believe that a 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 25^th

Time: 9 am – 10 am

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com

Loyola Village Book Club: Never Let Me Go at Westchester – Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Please join the Loyola Village Book Club in the Community Room to discuss Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

New members are welcome.

Where: Westchester – Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 25^th

Time: 12 pm

Address: 7113 W. Manchester Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90045

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/loyola-village-book-club-discussion-0

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 25^th

Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm

Address: On-air Event

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

Iacobani Book Club: Pride and Prejudice at Iacobani Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for our monthly book club! This month we’ll be discussing Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Copies of the book will be available at the customer service desk. This program is for adults.

Where: Iacobani Library,LACL

Date: Wednesday the 25^th

Time: 3 pm – 4 pm

Address: 4990 Clark Ave., Lakewood, CA 90712

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15873086

Good Trouble Reading Group: Selected Poems of Langston Hughes via Edendale Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event

Join our monthly reading group for our next session to discuss a selection of poems by Langston Hughes.

One of the leading voices of the Harlem Renaissance starting in the 1920s, Langston Hughes electrified readers and launched a generation of Black writers in America. His poems celebrated the experience of invisible men and women: of slaves who “rushed the boots of Washington”; of musicians on Lenox Avenue; of the poor and the lovesick; of losers in “the raffle of night.” They conveyed that experience in a voice that blended the spoken with the sung, turning poetic lines into the phrases of jazz and blues, and ripping through the curtain separating high culture from popular culture. They spanned the range from the lyric to the polemic, ringing out “wonder and pain and terror—and the marrow of the bone of life.” They give us a poet of extraordinary range, directness, and stylistic virtuosity, whose voice still sounds fresh today.

Email eden@lapl.org for the reading selection and the Zoom link to attend.

Where: Edendale Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 25^th

Time: 4 pm

Address: Online Event

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/good-trouble-reading-group-poetry-langston-hughes

Sci Fi Book Club: Like Thunder by Nnnedi Okoraforat Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join our Science Fiction Book Club where Like Thunder by Nnedi Okorafor will be discussed. Copies available from the branch Cybernaut.

Synopsis: In this sequel to Okorafor’s “Shadow Speaker”, the worlds of arcane magic and super science collide in an extreme confrontation in future Africa.

Where: Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 25^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-thunder-nnnedi-okorafor

Book Club: A Woman of No Importance at El Monte Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Bibliophiles are welcomed! Join us each month for a facilitated discussion of fiction and non-fiction titles. A limited number of copies are available for book club attendees at the library. Light refreshments will be served. For adults.

Our Book Club meets on the last Wednesday of every month unless otherwise stated.

March’s Book Pick is: A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell.

A biography of Virginia Hall, an unlikely yet extraordinary American spy who became one of the most effective operatives in World War II. The book follows how she defied expectations, dangers, and discrimination to play a pivotal role in the resistance—proving how one determined woman can influence the course of history.

Where: El Monte Library,LACL

Date: Wednesday the 25^th

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15166034

Blockbuster Book Club: The Devil Wears Prada at Clifton M. Brakensiek Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for our two-part book club for books that have made it to the screen! Ages 18+

This first session we will discuss the book, The Devil Wears Prada by Laura Weisberger. The second session, Saturday April 25th from 2-4 pm, we will watch the film adaptation. This program is generously sponsored by the Friends of the Clifton M. Brakensiek Library.

Check with the circulation desk for copies of the book or request a copy online at Catalog.LACountyLibrary.org/

Where: Clifton M. Brakensiek Library,LACL

Date: Wednesday the 25^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 9945 Flower St., Bellflower, CA 90706

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15882108

Sci Fi Story Club: The Toynbee Convector and The Lady Astronaut of Mars via Edendale Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event

Join our us on Zoom for the next gathering of the Sci Fi Story Club. We’ll be discussing two stories: The Toynbee Convector (1984) by Ray Bradbury and The Lady Astronaut of Mars (2012) by Mary Robinette Kowal.

In Bradbury’s story, a man living in our dystopian, polluted present builds a time machine and travels 100 years into the future, returning with glad tidings of the paradise that earth will become; over the next century, his inspiring prediction indeed comes to pass. On the centennial of his famous journey, the day his past self is set to arrive, a reporter is invited to interview the now 130-year-old traveler and learns the truth of what really happened.

Robinette Kowal tells the story of Elma York, a pioneering astronaut who led the first interplanetary mission. Now older and living on Mars, she faces a difficult choice: accept a final, one-way mission to a new planet, or stay on Mars with her ailing husband, who refuses to make the journey.

Email eden@lapl.org for the reading selection and for the Zoom link to attend.

Where: Edendale Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 25^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: Online Event 

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/sci-fi-story-club-toynbee-convector-and-lady-astronaut-mars

Mystery & Thriller Book Club: The Fury at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

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

Upcoming meeting:

March (3/25) – The Fury by Alex Michaelides

Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 25^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

Romantasy Book Club: Swordheart at Agoura Hills Library, LACL– In-Person Event

Join us as we discuss Swordheart by T. Kingfisher. Copies of the current title are available at Customer Service. For adults.

Halla is a housekeeper who has suddenly inherited her great-uncle’s estate…and, unfortunately, his relatives. Sarkis is an immortal swordsman trapped in a prison of enchanted steel. When Halla draws the sword that imprisons him, Sarkis finds himself attempting to defend his new wielder against everything from bandits and roving inquisitors to her own in-laws…and the sword itself may prove to be the greatest threat of all.

Where: Agoura Hills Library,LACL

Date: Wednesday the 25^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

We’re always on the side!

6:45 to 7 pm getting settled

7 pm check in

Write for an hour!

8ish check out!

All writers of all levels welcome!

WRITE | HANG | REPEAT

Where: Big Bar, The Alcove

Date: Wednesday the 25^th

Time: 6:45 pm – 8:15 pm

Address: 1929 Hillhurst Ave., Los Feliz, CA 90027

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Unsoupervised Readers Club: Never Let Me Go at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Join us for our March edition of UNSOUPERVISED READERS: the official Book Soup Book Club!⁠ It’s a scary world out there, so why not join a book club? We need a little community!⁠

MARCH PICK: Never Let Me Go byKazuo Ishiguro.

As a child, Kathy—now thirty-one years old—lived at Hailsham, a private school in the scenic English countryside where the children were sheltered from the outside world, brought up to believe that they were special and that their well-being was crucial not only for themselves but for the society they would eventually enter. Kathy had long ago put this idyllic past behind her, but when two of her Hailsham friends come back into her life, she stops resisting the pull of memory.

And so, as her friendship with Ruth is rekindled, and as the feelings that long ago fueled her adolescent crush on Tommy begin to deepen into love, Kathy recalls their years at Hailsham. She describes happy scenes of boys and girls growing up together, unperturbed—even comforted—by their isolation. But she describes other scenes as well: of discord and misunderstanding that hint at a dark secret behind Hailsham’s nurturing facade. With the dawning clarity of hindsight, the three friends are compelled to face the truth about their childhood—and about their lives now.

NOTE: See site for details

Where: Book Soup

Date: Wednesday the 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-03-25/unsoupervised-readers-club

Author Event: Joanna Margaret & The Daughters at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event

As the line between superstition and reality begins to blur, she fears she may become the next woman to vanish from Wilton Springs. Blending Gothic fiction and folk horror, this atmospheric literary thriller weaves together buried secrets, corrupt power, and the long shadow of the past in a story that will keep readers guessing until the very last page.

Where: Chevalier’s Books

Date: Wednesday the 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2026-03-25/daughters-joanna-margaret

Author Event: Dr. Ibram X. Kendi & Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age at Malik’s Off-site at The Miracle Theatre, Inglewood – In-Person Event

Join us to hear Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, in conversation with Michael Tubbs, discuss his book Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age.

Join us for an evening with Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, in conversation with Michael Tubbs, discuss his book Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age, a timely and thought-provoking work. This is a must-attend event for readers, scholars, educators and activists who seek a deeper understanding of the forces shaping our democracy today.

See site for details.

Where: The Miracle Theater

Date: Wednesday the 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

Address: 226 S. Market St., Inglewood, CA 90301

Website: https://malikbooks.com/ https://www.facebook.com/maliksbooks/posts/malik-books-proudly-presents-an-evening-with-dr-ibram-x-kendi-national-book-awar/1594450044962595/

RECESS Open Mic: PUA Turns 8 at SIPA HQ, Palms Up Academy – In-Person Event

RECESS Open Mic is at SIPA HQ on Wednesdays.

For the next couple of months, RECESS is celebrating PUA’s 8th Anniversary with OG artist highlights on the last Wednesday of every month 

Standard mic RSVP; rules and entry apply.

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.

Host: Lady Basco

NOTE: Only self-sign-ups are allowed.

20 slots available; 15 slots for dinner served; remaining slots for faculty.

See site for further details,

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

Where: SIPA HQ

Date: Wednesday, the 25^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

Where: Stories Books & Café

Date: Wednesday the 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://storiesla.com/events/4256220260325

Vroman’s Fiction Reading Group: Thug’s Life at Vroman’s, Pasadena – In-Person Event

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

The Vroman’s Fiction Reading Group explores contemporary fiction from a diverse selection of writers. Enjoy lively discussions at our one-hour meetings. Our Fiction Reading Group is free and inclusive; there are no requirements nor criteria to join. We announce upcoming titles 3-6 months in advance and choose titles that are available in paperback. Drop by our next meeting!

March’s pick is The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Wednesday the 25^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Join us each month as we re-visit the prequal trilogy to the infamous City of Bones series!

General manager Tayor C will lead this book club. Join us if you’re a fan of the series.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Wednesday 25^th

Time: 7:15 pm – 9 pm

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

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

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 25^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Story Salon LA at Art Parlor, 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: Fill er’up Freestyle

Where: Art Parlor

Date: Wednesday the 25^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 Martin Jago 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.

Martin Jago is a British American poet based in Los Angeles. Author of Photofit (Pindrop Press, 2023) and a forthcoming chapbook, Black Plastic Blues (Finishing Line, 2026), his writing has appeared widely in literary magazines like Agenda, Acumen, The Moth, LIT Magazine, Presence, The Penn Review, The High Window, The Indianapolis Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and Sierra Nevada Review, among others. He holds a Master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford where he was an F.H. Pasby Prize finalist.

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

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Wednesday, the 25^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Address: Online event (see site)

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

$5 cover fee, cash only

Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange

Date: Wednesday, the 25^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866

Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/24711688475176331

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

Come write with us!

Many people believe that a 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: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com

Afternoon Book Club for Adults: The House of Broken Angels at Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join Culver City Julian Dixon Library’s Afternoon Book Club to discuss The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea. For adults.

Join us in the meeting room for an in-person book discussion.

Summary provided by the publisher: “In his final days, beloved and ailing patriarch Miguel Angel de La Cruz, affectionately called Big Angel, has summoned his entire clan for one last legendary birthday party. But as the party approaches, his mother, nearly one hundred, dies, transforming the weekend into a farewell doubleheader. Among the guests is Big Angel’s half brother, known as Little Angel, who must reckon with the truth that although he shares a father with his siblings, he has not, as a half gringo, shared a life. Across two bittersweet days in their San Diego neighborhood, the revelers mingle among the palm trees and cacti, celebrating the lives of Big Angel and his mother, and recounting the many inspiring tales that have passed into family lore, the acts both ordinary and heroic that brought these citizens to a fraught and sublime country and allowed them to flourish in the land they have come to call home.”

 Where: Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 12 pm – 1 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15847987

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

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

Please note that in April, the group meets on the fifth Thursday.

 Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 1 pm – 2:30 pm

Address: 1246 Glendon Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/saved-story-seniors-writing-group

Marina Del Rey Book Club: The Great Divide at Marina Del Rey Library, LACL – In-Person Event

This month, we’ll explore The Great Divide by Cristina Henriquez. A powerful novel about the construction of the Panama Canal, casting light on the unsung people who lived, loved, and labored there. For adults.

Where: Marina Del Rey Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15950084

Between the Lines Book Club: So Far Gone at Castaic Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us as we meander through So Far Gone by Jess Walter. Copies are available at the Customer Service desk and newcomers are always welcome! For adults.

Rhys Kinnick has gone off the grid. At Thanksgiving a few years back, a fed-up Rhys punched his conspiracy-theorist son-in-law in the mouth, chucked his smartphone out a car window and fled for a cabin in the woods, with no one around except a pack of hungry raccoons. Now Kinnick’s old life is about to land right back on his crumbling doorstep.

 Where: Castaic Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

Rocio Carlos is the author of Coyolxhauqui, Los Angeles (Archetype Press, 2012), A World Below (Mindmade books, 2014), and co-author of ex.her.pt (wirecutter collective, 2016). Her poems have appeared in Chaparral, Angel City Review, The Spiral Orb and Cultural Weekly.

Audrey Harris is a seasoned stage actress and vocalist. Some previous television and film appearances include SHOWTIME at the APOLLO, SIX FEET UNDER, ‘WHITNEY HOUSTON’ T.V. Mini Series, DEAR VIVIAN, and Netflix DRUG LORDS to name a few.

Lauren Eggert-Crow serves on the leadership team for Women Who Submit. Lauren earned an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Arizona in 2007. She was voted Best Poet of Santa Cruz in 2010 and 2011. Raised in rural Pennsylvania, she lives and writes in Los Angeles. She is the author of four poetry chapbooks, including Bitches of the Drought (2017), which was selected as runner-up in Sundress Publications Chapbook Competition, In The Songbird Laboratory (Dancing Girl Press 2013), The Exhibit (Hyacinth Girl Press 2013), and Rungs, collaboratively written with Margaret Bashaar (Grey Book Press 2015).

Brenda Vaca is a Xicana poet, author, and independent publisher from Sejatnga, Unceded Tongva Territory, known as South Whittier, CA. She earned her B.A. in English at U.C. Berkeley with a Minor in Creative Writing. She is the author of the collection Riot of Roses and the founder of Riot of Roses Publishing House.

Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and author of Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications) and Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites (Mouthfeel Press). A former Steinbeck Fellow and Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, she’s received residencies from Hedgebrook, Ragdale, Yefe Nof, and the National Parks Arts Foundation in partnership with the Gettysburg National Military Park and Poetry Foundation. Her poem “Battlegrounds” was featured at Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, On Being’s Poetry Unbound, and the anthology, Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World (W.W. Norton). Her poetry can be found at Acentos Review, Huizache, Santa Fe Writers Project, and other journals. She teaches poetry and creative writing with Antioch University, MFA and UCLA Extension and is the director of Women Who Submit, a nonprofit organization empowering woman-identifying and nonbinary writers to submit work for literary publication. Inspired by her Chicana identity, she works to cultivate love and comfort in chaotic times.

Free and open to the public.

Where: Cool Cat Collective, Long Beach

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm Poetry; 5 pm – 6 pm art, cats & shop

Address: 2741 4^th St. #C, Long Beach, CA 90814

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Jennifer Skililas-Gahan, with Tina Alexis Allen, & The House in the Middle of the Street at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event

With prose that moves like a spell and imagery as vivid as a fever dream, Sklias-Gahan conjures a dark winter tale that recalls the cautionary power of the Brothers Grimm, yet resonates with startling relevance. The House in the Middle of the Street is a story of legacy and survival, and a reminder to be careful who you let in.

Jennifer Sklias-Gahan grew up in New York City in a Greek-American household rich with folklore, myths, and oral traditions. Encouraged by her librarian as a child to retell her favorite stories, she discovered a lifelong passion for the transformative power of storytelling. She has since built a career as a writer, actor, and producer, and is the founder of Demivoula Studios and co-founder of 18 Bleecker Films. The House in the Middle of the Street is her debut work of fiction. She lives in New York with her husband and their two children.

Tina Alexis Allen is a storyteller whose work spans film, television, the stage, and memoir. She recently wrapped her feature directorial debut, THE SCALE OF LOSS, which she also wrote and produced. The film stars William Sadler and Chloe Guidry, and follows her 2025 feature film PARK AVENUE (Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Dublin International), which she executive produced and co-wrote. Her producing credits include the Slamdance Jury Prize nominated film, PHANTOM PAIN, a project in which she also starred.

Tina’s coming-of-age memoir, HIDING OUT (HarperCollins), has been adapted by Ms. Allen into a feature screenplay and is currently being shopped. She has written, directed and produced multiple short films including award-winning, THE MEN’S ROOM. Additional projects in development include a television series about two sisters growing up in 1960’s segregated Baltimore, and an unscripted home makeover series, featuring inclusive and accessible design with social impact. As an actress, Tina has been lauded for her range and diversity in theatre, film and television. committing fully to the entertainment industry. Ms. Allen’s writing has appeared in numerous publications including Psychology Today, Best Self Magazine, and The Baltimore Sun.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 6:30 pm

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

In this hybrid talk and workshop, Nicola will share how she finds ideas, develops setting as character, and moves from a spark of inspiration to a finished novel. She’ll discuss practical strategies for getting unstuck, quieting self-doubt, building momentum, and creating a writing practice that actually works in real life.

You’ll leave with concrete tools for generating ideas, shaping scenes, and finally beginning (or returning to) the story you’ve been wanting to write.

During two sessions, we’ll also do a short, guided writing exercise designed to unlock fresh material and help you get started right away. There will be optional time for a few participants to share, but the focus is on inspiration, craft insight, and helping you go home ready to write.

Whether you’re a total beginner or a seasoned writer craving renewed energy, this is a welcoming, low-pressure space to reconnect with the joy and possibility of storytelling.

All levels welcome. Curiosity encouraged.

THIS TICKET INCLUDES both nights, March 26 and April 2 from 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm.

Nicola Harrison is a Manhattan Beach local and the author of Montauk, The Show Girl, Hotel Laguna and The Island Club (April 28, 2026). She is a graduate of UCLA and received her MFA in Creative Writing from Stony Brook University. Prior to writing novels, she worked as a fashion journalist in New York City.

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/product/love-writing-craft-talk

Author Event: Evelyn R, Carter, with Octavia Gorederma, & Was That Racist? at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

How do we combat racism in a world determined to tell us it doesn’t exist? To hold the line against racism, we need to know it when we see it. Whether you’ve ever wondered “Was that racist?”, “Did I say the wrong thing?”, or “How do we talk about this better?”—this conversation is for you. Join Dr. Evelyn R. Carter, author of Was That Racist? in conversation with Octavia Goredema about how we can all detect, interrupt, and unlearn bias.

Reserve your seat on EVENTBRITE!

Evelyn R. Carter, Ph.D., is a social psychologist and author of cutting-edge research on how to detect and discuss racial bias. As a diversity, equity, and inclusion expert, she has applied those evidence-based practices in a vast array of industries ranging from higher education, to financial services, to technology, to retail and professional sports, and at organizations like American Express, Burberry, Cushman & Wakefield, Nike, the NFL, Uber, and UCLA. Known for blending research, pop culture, and corporate DEI practices into unique insights, Dr. Carter’s work has been featured in The Atlantic, USA Today, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, and more.

Octavia Goredema is an award-winning author, advisor and founder who guides professionals to unleash their full potential at work. Octavia is the founder of Fire Memos, a Techstars portfolio company that helps you unlock your next promotion and raise. An acclaimed career expert, Octavia is the author of PREP, PUSH, PIVOT: Essential Career Strategies for Underrepresented Women and two Audible Originals, Brand Yourself for Success and How to Change Careers with Octavia Goredema.

Practice a new framework for dismantling racial bias in our society, our workplaces, and ourselves: by learning to detect it as well as people of color do.

How do we combat racism in a world determined to tell us it doesn’t exist?

To hold the line against racism, we need to know it when we see it. And as the dominant racial group in our society, White people must take up the charge. The problem, says researcher, DEI leader, and organizational consultant Dr. Evelyn Carter, is that White people haven’t been socialized to detect racial bias in the way people of color do. Racism is more than using racial slurs or overt, hateful speech, and it’s more than unintentional slights; it’s about an entire system that upholds Whiteness as the preferred standard.

Fortunately, detecting it is a skill that can be learned.

Was That Racist? is a re-education, call to action, and practical guide, full of research-backed strategies including how to: cultivate a growth mindset about bias, unlearn colorblindness and practice color consciousness, talk to kids about race and racism – and bring others along for the journey.

At a time when DEI is under coordinated attack, Was That Racist? is the essential toolkit for anyone who believes we all have a role to play in creating a more equitable world.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://villagewell.com

Ticketed: Billy Ray, with Gretchen Schreiber, & Burn the Water at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Billy Ray, in conversation with Gretchen Schreiber, will discuss Burn the Water.

The year is 2425, and London is unrecognizable—a sea of decaying skyscrapers, submerged streets, and shattered remnants of a once-great city. Two armies—the Rogues and the Crowns—have waged war for generations, locked in a brutal battle over a world long lost to the sea. Rafe, the ruthless and magnetic leader of the Rogue army, and Jule, the fiercest warrior the Crown army has ever known, are sworn enemies by birth. Both destined to lead their factions to victory after centuries of bloodshed—until they fall for each other. Their love is forbidden, dangerous, and utterly consuming. As Rafe and Jule risk everything to protect one another amid the violence, a new and even greater threat emerges from the water, one that could destroy both armies, and what’s left of their world. To survive, they must challenge everything they’ve been taught and convince their people that love is stronger than hate in a world where peace has always been impossible.

Gritty, emotional, and sweeping, Burn the Water is a haunting exploration of generational conflict, sacrifice, and the belief that love is bigger than all of us.

Billy Ray is one of modern Hollywood’s preeminent screenwriters. He has won a Writers Guild Award and was Oscar-nominated for his screenplay Captain Phillips. Past works as a writer or writer-director include The Hunger Games, Richard Jewell, Shattered Glass, The Last Tycoon, and The Comey Rule for Showtime, an award-winning adaptation of James Comey’s 2018 bestseller A Higher Loyalty.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-03-26/billy-ray

Phyllis Bennis & Understanding Palestine and Israel at Page Against the Machine, Long Beach – In-Person Event

Join us to hear Phyllis Bennis discuss and sign her book Understanding Palestine and Israel.

We are honored to present this event in partnership with the Institute for Policy Studies and Jewish Voice for Peace–Los Angeles.

Understanding Palestine and Israel seeks to answer all the questions you’ve been wondering about–up to and including Israel’s war on Gaza and the election of Donald Trump–in straightforward, accessible language. As the world watched in horror as Israel responded to the terrible acts of October 7, 2023 with a brutal war against the people of Gaza, a key question was when to start the clock. Because the events of October 7 had their origins in events that transpired 17, or 58, or even 77 years earlier. What is the Balfour Declaration? What are the Occupied Territories? What is Zionism—and do all Jews support it? Does Israel have the right of self-defense? What were conditions like in Gaza before October 7? 𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐𝘴𝘳𝘢𝘦𝘭 offers a lucid point-by-point examination that brings together the historical, factual, legal, and moral basis for an informed understanding of one of the great historical injustices of the past hundred years.

𝗣𝗵𝘆𝗹𝗹𝗶𝘀 𝗕𝗲𝗻𝗻𝗶𝘀 is a Jewish American writer, activist, and political commentator whose areas of focus include US unilateralism and empire, the Middle East (particularly Israel-Palestine and Iraq), and U.S.-United Nations relations. She is the Program Director at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C., and is an International Advisor for Jewish Voice for Peace. She has served as an informal adviser to several top UN officials on the Middle East, and has been short-listed twice for the post of UN Special Rapporteur. She is a frequent featured commentator on U.S. and international television and radio programs, and her work has appeared in 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘠𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘵𝘰𝘯 𝘗𝘰𝘴𝘵, 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘰𝘳, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘔𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘑𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴, and many other publications. Bennis is the author of nine previous books including 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘚𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘥: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘢𝘯 𝘜𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 (1990), 𝘊𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘴: 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘞𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘵𝘰𝘯 𝘋𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘛𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺’𝘴 𝘜𝘕 (2000), 𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘢𝘯-𝘐𝘴𝘳𝘢𝘦𝘭𝘪 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘵: 𝘈 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘳 (2009), and 𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘜𝘚-𝘐𝘳𝘢𝘯 𝘊𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘴: 𝘈 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘳 (2009).

Where: Page Against the Machine

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 2714 E. 4^th St., Long Beach, CA 90814

Website: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1323386333159266&set=gm.903499405809279

Rep Club Presents: Tayari Jones, with Attica Locke, & Kin at CAAM – In-Person Event

Join Rep Club at the California African-American Museum for the L.A. launch of ‘KIN’ by NYT-Bestselling author Tayari Jones, in conversation with Attica Locke.

Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood, but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and marries into an affluent family. Annie, abandoned by her dissolute mother as a child, and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, and culminate in a battle for her life.

A novel about mothers and daughters, about friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South, Kin is an exuberant, emotionally rich, unforgettable work from one of the brightest and most irresistible voices in contemporary fiction.

Tayari Jones is the author of four novels, most recently An American Marriage, which was an Oprah’s Book Club Selection and also appeared on Barack Obama’s summer reading list and his year-end roundup. It won the Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly known as the Orange Prize), Aspen Words Prize, and an NAACP Image Award and has been published in two dozen countries. Jones lives in Atlanta.

Attica Locke is a NY Times best-selling author whose sixth novel, Guide Me Home, is the finale of her Edgar-Award winning Highway 59 trilogy, which includes Bluebird, Bluebird and Heaven, My Home, each of which were finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She is the author of Pleasantville, winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and long-listed for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Fiction; The Cutting Season, winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence; and Black Water Rising, which was nominated for an Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award, as well as a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was short-listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. A former fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmaker’s Lab, Locke is also a screenwriter and TV producer, with credits that include Empire, When They See Us, and the Emmy-nominated Little Fires Everywhere, for which she won an NAACP Image Award for television writing. She co-created and executive-produced an adaptation of her sister Tembi Locke’s memoir From Scratch for Netflix. She has served on the board of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles; been an advisor at the Sundance Labs, as well as a visiting writer at several universities; and served as a judge for the 2025 National Book Awards.

RSVP (see site)

Where: California African American Museum

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm (Doors at 6:30 pm)

Address: 600 State Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90037

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rep-club-presents-tayari-jones-the-california-african-american-museum-tickets-1979350049280?aff=oddtdtcreator

Book Launch: Nicole Platania, with Dayna, & Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Nicole Plantania will discuss Scars Beneath a Serpent’s Scales, her new romance series, in conversation with Dayna of @daynas.bookshelf.

A book signing will follow.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Thursday 26^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

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

At Skylight: Kat Rosenfield, with Luke Goebel, & How to Survive in the Woods at Skylight Books – In-Person Event

Kat Rosenfield, in conversation with Luke Goebel, will discuss How to Survive in the Woods.

Raised by a doomsday prepper and hardened by the startup world, Emma Sharp has learned how to endure, especially in her marriage to Logan Grant, a charismatic tyrant who keeps her under tight control. To Emma, her marriage is a cage: it keeps you in, but it also keeps you safe. Until it doesn’t.

When Emma forms an unexpected bond with Logan’s former girlfriend, the two women form a plan to help Emma take her life back. Destination: the punishing final stretch of the Appalachian Trail known as the Hundred Mile Wilderness.

After all, bad things happen in the woods all the time.

As the three venture deeper into Maine’s backcountry, desire and dread curdle into something unpredictable, dark, and deadly. Someone is lying. Someone is watching. And in the remote heart of the forest, someone is about to be lost, or found.

How to Survive in the Woods is a heart-stopping knockout of a novel, by turns smart, psychologically rich, and deliciously dark. In her masterful hands, Kat Rosenfield asks us to consider what it means to be a survivor—and what, or who, you would sacrifice to stay alive.

Kat Rosenfield is the author of six books, including No One Will Miss Her (Edgar Award nominee for Best Novel), and the New York Times-bestselling A Trick of Light, co-authored with the late, great Stan Lee. A former reporter for MTV News and current columnist for The Free Press, her essays and cultural criticism have appeared in The Boston Globe, Vulture, Wired, AirMail, and The New York Times. She lives in Connecticut.

Luke Goebel is an author and screenwriter celebrated for his unflinching honesty and innovative storytelling. A recipient of the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize and the Joan Scott Memorial Fiction Award, his debut novel, Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours, garnered critical acclaim for its fragmented yet profoundly resonant exploration of love, grief, and the restless search for identity. His next novel, Kill Dick, will be published on April 14th, 2026 by Red Hen Press. Goebel also co-wrote Eileen, starring Anne Hathaway and Thomasin McKenzie, and Causeway, starring Jennifer Lawrence. He lives in Pasadena.

RSVP

Where: Skylight Books

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Where: Stories Books & Café

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://storiesla.com/events/4347420260326

Tia Chucha’s Book Club: Stealing Home at Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss Stealing Home: Los Angeles, The Dodgers, and the Lives Caught In Between by Eric Nusbaum.

Give us your review of Stealing Home by Eric Nusbaum during our upcoming Book Club meeting on Thursday, March 26 at 7 pm.

No registration necessary, just drop by and join the conversation! Stealing Home is available at our bookstore in person and online at http://www.tiachucha.org. Link in our bio.

Where: Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 12677 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar, CA 91342

Memory is both a treasure and a trickster: fragmented, selective, and sometimes unreliable. This workshop explores how to use memory’s imperfections as creative fuel to write vivid, image-driven nonfiction that captures the essence of moments, emotions, and experience in short-form narrative. Participants will examine how memory shapes storytelling, practice mining sensory details, and learn techniques to write with honesty, depth, and imaginative clarity.

RSVP by donation at website.

Where: Underdog Bookstore

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

Address: 312 South Myrtle Ave., Monrovia CA 91016

This is a space for language that shakes loose what’s stuck, imagery that cuts through the noise, and creative work that won’t sit down. If you’ve felt the urge to speak, make, resist, or remake – this night is meant for you.

The Night:

-4–5 featured poets

-Open mic slots available at the end

-Unlimited visual art displays — bring pieces that provoke, hold space, disrupt, or soothe * A room full of people who believe art is one of our greatest powers Contributors are invited to explore any of the following themes – or bring something entirely their own:

Why “Unquiet”? Because staying quiet has never protected us. Because creativity has always found cracks in the system. Because imagination is a political act. And because poetry and art become powerful when they refuse to shrink.

Where: The Glendale Room

Date: Thursday the 26^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Address: 127 N Artsakh Avenue, Glendale, CA 91206

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/unquiet-a-night-of-creative-resistance-poetry-show-open-mic-tickets-1979674236934

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

Come write with us!

Many people believe that a 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: Friday the 27^th

Time: 9 am – 10 am

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com

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

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

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

Free to attend.

NOTE: Free to attend.

Where: Once Upon a Time

Date: Friday, the 27^th

Time: 9:30 am

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 27^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com

Book Club: God of the Woods at La Mirada Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss God of the Woods: A Novel by Liz Moore.

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. This isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. For adults

Where: La Mirada Library, LACL

Date: Friday the 27^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15839491

Sci Fi Festival at Octavia E. Butler Library – In-Person Event

The annual Octavia E. Butler Library Science Fiction Festival will be on Friday, March 27th, 2026, from 3 pm – 6 pm. The target audience for the festival is students from ages 8-15.

¡El Festival de Ciencia Ficción de la Biblioteca Octavia E. Butler será el viernes 27 de marzo de 2026, de 3 a 6 p. m.! El público objetivo del festival son estudiantes de entre 8 y 15 años.

The Festival celebrates the genre of science fiction while honoring the legacy of Octavia E. Butler, who wrote about wanting to provide opportunities for young people to write in the genre. Butler is known for immersing herself in research to ground her writing in reality while imagining “what if” or “if only”, and “if this goes on.” Our festival brings together writers, artists, scientists, and creators to inspire our students to see themselves in the future and imagine how they can be the next generation of thinkers and creators.

Where: Octavia E. Butler Library, Magnet School

Date: Friday the 27^th

Time: 3 pm – 6 pm

Address: 1505 North Marengo Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91103

Website: https://www.penfamilies.org/calendar/2026/3/27/oeb-library-sci-fi-festival

Horror Book Club: Mister Magic at Compton Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss Kiersten White’s Mister Magic. To borrow a print copy of the books, please contact the Compton Library directly. For ages 18+

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

Thirty years after a tragic accident shut down production of the classic children’s program Mister Magic, the five surviving cast members have done their best to move on. But just as generations of cultishly devoted fans still cling to the lessons they learned from the show, the cast, known as the Circle of Friends, have spent their lives searching for the happiness they felt while they were on it. The friendship. The feeling of belonging. And the protection of Mister Magic.

Then a twist of fate brings the castmates back together at the remote desert filming compound that feels like it’s been waiting for them all this time. Even though they haven’t seen each other for years, they understand one another better than anyone has since.

After all, they’re the only ones who hold the secret of that circle, the mystery of the magic man in his infinitely black cape, and, maybe, the answers to what really happened on that deadly last day. But as the Circle of Friends reclaim parts of their past, they begin to wonder: Are they here by choice, or have they been lured into a trap?

Where: Compton Library, LACL

Date: Friday the 27^th

Time: 4 pm – 5 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15760036

Black Lit Book Club: Sky Fill of Elephants at Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside – In-Person Event

Participants will read and discuss Sky Full of Elephants: A Novel by Cebo Campbell.

In a world without white people, what does it mean to be Black?

One day, a cataclysmic event occurs: all of the white people in America walk into the nearest body of water. A year later, Charlie Brunton is a Black man living in an entirely new world. Having served his time in prison for a wrongful conviction, he’s now a professor of electric and solar power systems at Howard University when he receives a call from someone he wasn’t even sure existed: his daughter Sidney, a nineteen-year-old left behind by her white mother and step-family.

Traumatized by the event, and terrified of the outside world, Sidney has spent a year in isolation in Wisconsin. Desperate for help, she turns to the father she never met, a man she has always resented. Sidney and Charlie meet for the first time as they embark on a journey across a truly “post-racial” America in search for answers. But neither of them are prepared for this new world and how they see themselves in it.

Heading south toward what is now called the Kingdom of Alabama, everything Charlie and Sidney thought they knew about themselves, and the world, will be turned upside down. Brimming with heart and humor, “this stunning allegory will spark much discussion” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) about the power of community and connection, about healing and self-actualization, and a reckoning with what it means to be Black in America, in both their world and ours.

Cebo Campbell is an author and creative director based in Brooklyn, New York. Winner of the Linda L. Ross Creative Writing Award and the Stories Award for Poetry, Cebo’s work has been featured in numerous publications. Cebo is the cofounder of the award-winning creative agency, Spherical, where he leads a team of creatives in shaping the best hotel brands in the world. Sky Full of Elephants is his debut novel.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside

Date: Friday the 27^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://cellardoorbookstore.com/event/2026-03-20/mystery-book-club-murder-zion

Romance Book Club: Hard Feelings at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event

Participants will read and discuss Hard Feelings by author Jennifer Millikin.

Where: Chevalier’s Books

Date: Friday the 27^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2026-03-27/romance-book-club-march

DTSB Art Walk: Celebrating Women’s History Month at Sole Alley San Berardino – In-Person Event

We’re kicking off 2026 by centering women-identifying artists, youth voices, and creative leaders who are shaping the cultural landscape of our region.

The evening will feature:

• Youth-Led Poetry Out Loud Open Mic

• Live Painting with artist Morgan Blake Turner

• Art Activity with Community Teaching Artist Emily Kopacz

• Live DJ set with DJ brownsounds

• Food Vendors

• Art Vendors

Start the year with creativity, connection, and community in the heart of Downtown San Bernardino.

All are welcome.

Where: Sole Alley

Date: Friday the 27^th

Time: 6 pm – 9 pm

Address: 479 W. 4^th St., San Bernardino, CA 92401

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Open Mic Night at The Untold Story Bookstore & Café – In-Person Event

Come hang out with us and have a great time!

Showcase your talent or support your community by joining the audiencein a safe and welcoming environment.

Where: The Untold Story Bookstore Café

Date: Friday the 27^th

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: 301 N. Anaheim Blvd., Anaheim, CA 92805

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Medicina Open Mic at Colectivo Cihuateotl Centro Cultural – In-Person Event

Join us for Medicina Open Mic, a healing space co-created in community with the intention of coming together to honor and uplift a featured artist along with the BIQTPOC and or Womxn of Color community members who choose to share their gifts. Furthermore, Medicina invites all to engage in dialogue in order to radically imagine a new world by carving out time for collective reflection and collaborative building. Conversations of inspiration, process, and connectivity are strengthened by the vulnerability and support present in the space. Thus, the conscious decision to hold this event in a small intimate group setting was made in order to create a brave space in which members feel seen and held.

Art is medicine. A powerful and transformative force. As creative beings, our spirit longs for this mode of release, re-membering, and envisioning. When practiced and shared, it provides a portal for self-discovery through which we can reflect, heal, and envision a new world.

Where: Colectivo Cihuateotl Centro Cultural

Date: Friday the 27^th

Time: 7 pm – 9:30 pm

Address: 4100 City Terrace Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90063

The Definitive Soapbox Open Mic is back with another Open Mic Night on March 27 at The Nest.

Theme: LOVE: relationships, care, community, resistance, etc.

We’re not just talking about being in love — we’re asking:

What does love look like when it’s honest? When it’s challenged? When it’s evolving?

Where: The Nest; a Brunch joint

Date: Friday the27^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 16916 Bellflower Blvd., Bellflower, CA 90706

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Book Launch: Lola King & Loving the Tormentor at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Lola King will discuss Loving the Tormentor, book three of the Silver Falls University romance series, in conversation with bookstagrammer Ava Reads Romance.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Friday the27^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

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

Ticketed: Celebrate Indie Press Month with Angel City Press: Carribean Fragoza, Lynell George, and D.J. Waldie, with Naomi Hirahara at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Join us for a special evening featuring three celebrated Angel City Press at Los Angeles Public Library authors: Carribean Fragoza, Lynell George, and D.J. Waldie. Moderated by beloved Pasadena author Naomi Hirahara.

These distinguished Los Angeles writers will gather for readings and a celebration of the spirit of indie publishing, discussing their work on capturing the essence, history, and diverse narratives of Southern California.

Acknowledging the power of indie presses and the bookstores that support them, Angel City Press at Los Angeles Public Library is proud to be a local Los Angeles publisher. In more than 30 years of operation, and now a part of the Los Angeles Public Library, Angel City Press has published more than 135 books that tell the social and cultural history of Southern California.

This ticketed event is FREE and will take place at Vroman’s Bookstore, located at 695 E. Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91101.

There are three add-on options for a book by each featured author.

Writing the Golden State: The New Literary Terrain of California, co-edited by Carribean Fragoza.

After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the Frame by Lynell George

Elements of Los Angeles: Earth, Water, Air, Fire by D.J. Waldie

A purchase of any or all of those books from Vroman’s is greatly appreciated and makes events like this one possible. For this add-on option, refunds are available until one day before the program.

There will be a public book signing after the conversation.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Friday the 27^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-03-27/celebrate-indie-press-month-angel-city-press

Apocalypse Thriving: L.A. Book Launch for Camille Hernandez & Motherlands at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Join us for a celebration of Camille Hernandez’s debut poetry collection, Motherlands, a lyrical meditation on the parallel journeys of motherhood, immigration, and amputation, exploring how the severance of migration echoes the raptures of childbirth. Hernandez’s work explores the fluid intimacy and resilient survival found in relationships between unseen women.

Following a reading from Motherlands, the evening will feature a discussion entitled “Apocalypse Thriving” with a panel of women of color poets who will discuss their perspectives of the end of the world as the beginning of connection; featuring Sarah Yanni, Muriel Leung, and Camille Hernandez, moderated by West Hollywood poet laureate, Jen Cheng. This is an evening that amplifies survival, intuition, and defiant pleasure. Books will be available for purchase. A signing with the authors will follow the discussion.

Camille Hernandez (she/they) is Anaheim’s third Poet Laureate (2024-2026), the first Black and Filipina woman to hold the position. She authored the books Motherlands (Finishing Line Press, 2025). The Hero and the Whore (Westminster John Knox Press, 2023). Camille’s writing honors the women who kept their secrets intact and their altars clean. She is a fellow of The Watering Hole, an inaugural fellow of the McCormack Writing Institute (formerly Tin House) and an inaugural fellow of Roots.Wounds.Words. In 2025, OC Register named Hernandez as one of Orange County’s 125 more influential people for her contributions to establishing accessible literary arts programming.

Muriel Leung is the author of the Lambda Award winning novel How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnamable Disaster (W.W. Norton & Company) as well as other titles that include Imagine Us, The Swarm (Nightboat Books), Bone Confetti (Noemi Press), and Images Seen to Images Felt (Antenna) with Kristine Thompson.

Sarah Yanni is a Mexican-Egyptian writer in California. Her writing has been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Mizna, Pleiades, Nat Brut, and Wildness Journal, among others, and has been recognized as a contest Finalist by BOMB Magazine, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Poetry Online, Kelsey Street Press, and Letras Latinas. Her chapbook, Hard Crush, was released by Wonder Press in 2024. She holds an MFA from CalArts.

Jen Cheng (she/ella/kir) is the fifth West Hollywood City Poet Laureate (2023-2026), a Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets, a California Arts Council Fellow, and a Tin House Writers Workshop alumni. She was named one of the Top 50 LGBTQ+ Impact Leaders by LA Magazine (2025). Jen is a multidisciplinary artist who blends East-West influences as Feng Shui Poetry. Jen’s writing is published in Passengers Journal, Colossus:Current, and elsewhere. To connect, please visit JenCvoice.com or on social media @JenCvoice.

Book signings to follow the reading.

Tickets at Eventbrite.

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

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Friday, the 27^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm (Doors at 7 pm)

Address: 681 Venice Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90291

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/apocalypse-thriving-la-book-launch-for-camille-hernandezs-motherlands-tickets-1983041878641

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

Do you want to find creative inspiration and overcome writer’s block in a supportive and peaceful community setting? Are you interested in writing professionally or for personal growth and healing but unsure where to begin?

Come join acclaimed author and writing instructor Francesca Lia Block MWF 9-10 am and TuTh 10 am for a brief intro, discussion of her highly-effective 12 Question method, and 40 minutes of free writing on any topic without judgment. Afterwards you will be able to share a bit about your process and ask Francesca brief 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: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com

Book Club for Middle Grade Readers: Wink by Rob Harrell via Palisades Branch Library, LAPL – Online MG Event

Middle-grade readers are invited to participate in our fun monthly book discussions. This month, we will be reading Wink by Rob Harrell.

Please email gkim@lapl.org for the Zoom login information.

Where: Palisades Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11 am

Address: Online Event

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-middle-grade-readers-wink-rob-harrell

2026 Writers Festival: A High Tea Experience at Bel Canto Books Off-site at Cerritos Library – In-Person Event

The Friends of the Cerritos Library are thrilled to present their third annual Writers Festival! Immerse yourself in a world of words as we celebrate the magic of storytelling.

This fundraising event will be held on Saturday, March 28 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Skyline Room and includes a high tea experience, author panel discussion, entertainment, and a raffle. This year’s featured authors include:

Nikki Erlick (“The Poppy Fields”), Soo Jin Lee and Linda Yoon (“Where I Belong”), Joss Richard (“It’s Different This Time”), Nayantara Roy (“The Magnificent Ruins”), and Zahida Sherman (Writer’s Block: Creative Writing & Meaningful Connection).

Learn more and register at website!

Where: Bel Canto Books Off-site at Cerritos Library

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 11 am – 3 pm

Address: 18025 Bloomfield Ave., Cerritos, CA 90703

Website: https://belcantobooks.net/events

Mystery Book Club: Listen for the Lie at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Read the book and join our lively discussion!

There is no meeting in December.

March 28: Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 11 am

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

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

Glendale Poet Laureate Poetry Workshop & Reading at Glendale Central Library – In-Person Event

The Glendale Poet Laureate Program invites you to Glendale Central Library for the next installment of our workshop-reading series.

We’ll develop poems and explore craft alongside featured poets Kweku Abimbola (Poet Laureate, El Segundo, CA), Yahya Ashour (A Gaza of Siege & Genocide), Jose Hernandez Diaz (Bad Mexican, Bad American).

This workshop is free and open to the public, and all levels of experience and language backgrounds are welcome!

Location: Central Library- Auditorium (2nd floor)

Light refreshments provided

Activities: reading, writing, workshopping, discovery

Learn more and submit poems for Jewel City Review publication by July 1st, 2026 at http://www.eglendalelac.org/poetlaureate

Visitors to the Glendale Central Library receive 3-hour FREE parking across Harvard Street at the Marketplace parking structure with validation at the service desk. Accessible parking is available on the east side of the building. For additional information about this event, please contact Central Library at (818) 548-2021 or send us an email at LibraryInfo@GlendaleCA.gov

Where: Glendale Central Library, Auditorium

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 11 am – 2 pm

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

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/glendale-poet-laureate-poetry-workshop-reading-tickets-1984988433840

Ontario Art Book Fair at Ontario Museum of History & Art – In-Person Event

Join us for a one-day unique and regional showcase of artists’ books, catalogues, monographs, periodicals, prints, and zines.

Where: Ontario Museum of History & Art

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 11 am – 5 pm

Address: 225 Euclid Avenue, Ontario, CA 91762

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ontario-art-book-fair-tickets-1982464620045

Open Mic Poetry at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Kids Event

Share your original poems, lyrics, spoken word, or just enjoy listening. Each poet will have five minutes to read an original work. If you wish to read, sign up when you arrive.

Our featured speaker will be Joe Camhi. Joe has published poetry and fiction in magazines and websites, including Exquisite Corpse, The Louisiana Review, Street News, The New Press, and Far Gone Magazine. His plays have been produced in Southern California, Louisiana, and Oregon. In New York City, Joe has been a featured reader at CBGB, The Knitting Factory, and the Nuyorican Poets Café, where he placed second in its poetry slam semifinals. Joe currently teaches English at College of the Canyons and Los Angeles Mission College. He performs some of his narrative verse on his YouTube page.

Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 1 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/open-mic-poetry-1

An Afternoon of Poetry With the Venice Collective at Donald Bruce Kaufman – Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Kids Event

In preparation for National Poetry Month in April, enjoy an afternoon of poetry in the community room. Poets from the Venice Collective have been working together for more than 25 years and have recently published their second group anthology, A Shared Condition. Many poets in the group have taught at the college level, and all are published poets. Join us for poetry from A Shared Condition and refreshments as we celebrate the upcoming National Poetry Month.

Where: Donald Bruce Kaufman – Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 2 pm

Address: 11820 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/afternoon-poetry-venice-collective

Weekend Book Club: The Tainted Cup at Carson Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Patrons can join a facilitated discussion of fiction and nonfiction titles. A limited number of titles are available for attendees to pick up at the library. March’s Book: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. For adults. 

Where: Carson Library, LACL

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

Address: 151 E. Carson St., Carson, CA 90745

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15856845

When We Gather We Heal: Indigenous Voices in Poetry at Altadena Library at Loma Alta Park Gymnasium – In-Person Event

Featuring Kweku Abimbola, Tina Calderon, Megan Dorame, Briana Muñoz, Erin Marie Lynch, emerging poets + Open Mic. Hosted by Sehba Sarwar and Lester Graves Lennon.

Kweku Abimbola earned his MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program. He is of Gambian, Ghanaian, and Sierra Leonean descent. Abimbola’s first full-length poetry collection, Saltwater Demands a Psalm, was published by Graywolf Press in 2023.

Tina Calderon is a Culture Bearer of Gabrielino Tongva, Chumash and Yoeme decent. She is wife, mother, grandmother, sister, and auntie to many. Tina is a singer who also enjoys creative writing and composing poems and songs.

Megan Dorame is a Tongva poet who lives and writes in Santa Ana, California. She holds a BA in anthropology from the University of Oklahoma and works to reclaim and revitalize the Tongva language. Her work has appeared in The Ear, Dryland, and The Offing, among others.

Briana Muñoz is the author of Loose Lips (2019), Everything Is Returned to the Soil (2021), and Matriarchy: Sacred Poems (2025).

Erin Marie Lynch is a descendant of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in creative writing and literature at the University of Southern California, where she serves as the managing editor of Ricochet Editions.

Sehba Sarwar is a poet, novelist, essayist, and multidisciplinary artist. She was born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan. She earned her BA at Mount Holyoke College and an MA at the University of Texas at Austin. Sarwar is the author of the novel Black Wings (Veliz Books, 2019).

Lester Graves Lennon is an investment banker whose career in public finance exceeds 40 years. His first book of poetry, The Upward Curve of Earth and Heavens (2001), can be found in 70 public and university libraries. His second book of poetry, My Father Was a Poet, was published in 2013, and his third, Lynchings: Postcards from America, was published in 2022.

Sarwar and Lennon are the new co-poets laureate for Altadena.

Join us for an afternoon with Indigenous poets who will share work that honors ancestral knowledge, lived experience, and the healing that comes from gathering in community.

Where: Loma Lata Park, Altadena

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 2 pm – 4 pm

Address: 3330 N. Lincoln Ave., Altadena, CA 91001

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15856845

Fourth Saturday Poetry Reading: Jessica Laser & Jeremy Ra at Claremont Helen Renwick Library – In-Person Event

The Fourth Saturday Poetry Reading on Saturday, March 28, 2026 will feature Jessica Laser & Jeremy Ra.

Jeremy Ra’s poems have appeared in Los Angeles Book Review, Spillway, I-70 Review, and Cultural Daily, among others. He was a twice-finalist for the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize and the recipient of the Morton Marcus Poetry Prize. His first chapbook, Another Way of Loving Death, was published by Moon Tide Press, and his collaborative chapbook with Aruni Wijesinghe, God Is a River Running Down My Palm, was published by Picture Show Press. He is currently the co-host of the video series, Poetry.la, and a board member of Beyond Baroque.

Jessica Laser was born and raised in Chicago. She is the author of The Goner School, a finalist for the 2025 Griffin Prize; Planet Drill, winner of Futurepoem Books’ inaugural Other Futures Award; and Sergei Kuzmich from All Sides. Her poems, essays and interviews have recently appeared in The Drift, Kismet Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, and The Yale Review. She holds degrees from Brown University (BA), the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (MFA), and the University of California, Berkeley (PhD). She lives in Glendale and teaches at Claremont McKenna College.

Where: Claremont Helen Renwick Library

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 2 pm – 4 pm

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

If you can’t make it to the event, you can order signed books in advance.

Where: Once Upon a Time, Montrose

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 2 pm

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/pet-placement-society

Creative Writing Group at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Calling all writers of fiction, screenplays, poetry, etc. Get feedback on your writing in a fun, supportive environment! The Central Library Creative Writing Group meets every other Saturday for fellowship, feedback, and snacks. Meetings start out with a short writing prompt exercise, then writers are invited to share up to five pages of their work for feedback from the group. Whether you are just starting out or well on your way to glory, join us and banish (at least temporarily) those Lonely Writer Blues!

Where: Central Library, LAPL, Meeting Room B

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm

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

We will read and discuss The Cure for Women by Lydia Reeder. For adults.

The View Park Library Book Club meets monthly on a Saturday, in person at View Park Bebe Moore Campbell Library or via Zoom. Please visit the library, call, or email cray@library.lacounty.gov to be added to the email list.

Where: View Park Library, LACL

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 3 pm – 4:30 pm

Address: 3854 W. 54^th St., Los Angeles, CA 90043,

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16085787

Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Jackie Chau & Jeffrey Jensen + Four Feathers Poets – In-Person Event

Join us to hear poets Jackie Chau and Jeffrey Jensen read their work, hosted by DKC + Four Feathers Press online edition: TURTLE ISLAND.

Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.

Where: Lamanda Park Library, Pasadena

Date: Saturday, the 28^th

Time: 3 pm – 4:30 pm

Address: 140 S. Altadena Dr., Pasadena, CA

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

Historical Fiction Book Club: A Bakery in Paris at Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss A Bakery In Paris: A Novel by Aimie K. Runyan.

From the author of The School for German Brides, this captivating dual timeline historical novel set in nineteenth-century and post–World War II Paris follows two fierce women of the same family, generations apart, who find that their futures lie in the four walls of a simple bakery in a tiny corner of Montmartre.

1870: The Prussians are at the city gates, intent to starve Paris into submission. Lisette Vigneau—headstrong, willful, and often ignored by her wealthy parents—awaits the outcome of the war from her parents’ grand home in the Place Royale in the very heart of the city. When an excursion throws her into the path of a revolutionary National Guardsman, Théodore Fournier, her destiny is forever changed. She gives up her life of luxury to join in the fight for a Paris of the People during the tumultuous rise of the Paris Commune. She opens a small bakery with the hopes of being a vital boon to the impoverished neighborhood in its hour of need. When the city falls into famine, and then rebellion, her resolve to give up the comforts of her past life is sorely tested.

1946: In post-World War II Paris, nineteen-year-old Micheline Chartier is coping with the loss of her father and the disappearance of her mother during the war. In their absence, she is charged with the raising of her two younger sisters. At the hand of a well-meaning neighbor, Micheline finds herself enrolled in a prestigious baking academy with her entire life mapped out for her. Feeling trapped and desperately unequal to the task of raising two young girls, she becomes obsessed with finding her mother. Her classmate at the academy, Laurent Tanet, may be the only one capable of helping Micheline move on from the past and begin creating a future for herself.

In this sweeping generational saga, both women must grapple with loss, learn to accept love, and face impossible choices armed with little more than their courage and a belief that a bit of flour, yeast, sugar, and love can bring about a revolution of their own.

Aimie K. Runyan is a multi-published and bestselling author of historical and contemporary fiction. She has been nominated for a Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Writer of the Year Award, a Historical Novel Society’s Editor’s Choice selection, and a four-time finalist for the Colorado Book Awards. She is an adjunct instructor for the Drexel University MFA in Creative Writing program and endeavors to be active in the literary community in Colorado and beyond. She lives in the Rocky Mountains with her wonderful husband, two (usually) adorable children, two (always) adorable cats, and a dragon.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 5 pm – 7 pm

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

We foster community for LGBTQ+ writers, comics, screenwriters, and poets who want to try out new material and make friends. Allies are welcome in the audience. Writers sign in an hour before the open mic at an outside table for a 7-minute slot.

“Community only exists in a state of being, just like our queerness. We need to live it, and we intend to live a lot with Queer Joyride!”

– Jay Hagans, Co-creator, Queer Joyride

Sonora Chase’s memoir, Femme, is a nostalgic trip through the 90s in Austin and New York City during an era of lesbian chic from the launch of The L Word and ending in the loss of Sapphic spaces. Her new solo show is based on these stories. Her essays have been published in Diva Magazine and GO NYC Magazine. Her MFA in acting is from CUNY Brooklyn College. She was last seen on How I Met Your Mother, Mom, and Trophy Wife.

Miry Whitehill, author, nonprofit founder, and executive director of Miry’s List, leads mission delivery and educating the public about U.S. refugee resettlement. With a marketing degree from the University of Maryland and a decade of experience in digital marketing, she combines community engagement and technology to create a positive impact. Miry’s Ted Talk, “How To Be A Good Neighbor,” has reached tens of thousands, and her book Our World Is A Family sold 30,000 copies in its first year. Miry is mother to Reuben and Sabo, aged 12 and 9. Miry’s List has supported over 1,500 resettling refugee families since its founding in 2016.

Jay Hagans writes personal essays about food, music, life in LA, and the strange little moments that make life feel honest again. From silent meditation retreats to karaoke nights to living their best retired life while still working to coming out as trans/gender expansive, Jay’s stories invite readers to laugh, reflect, and maybe loosen their grip on the idea that life has to look a certain way. Come hear Jay read, laugh a little, and leave with something to think about. (It may be a croissant that you leave thinking about)

Find them on Instagram and Substack @Jayeatsstuff.

Ismenia Monchez is a first-generation Salvadoreña, daughter of immigrants, mother, and a lifelong lover of language. Born in El Salvador and raised in Los Angeles, she has been writing her way through the world since she was ten years old — journals first, then a degree in English Literature, and now a memoir that has been years in the making. Her stories live at the intersection of family, identity, and everything first-gen daughters carry without being asked. Her memoir-in-progress is a love letter and a testament — to the strength and resilience of immigrant parents and the communities they built, and to the daughters forged from their hope. Written for every first-gen who has ever searched for themselves in someone else’s pages.

Where: The Pop Hop

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 5 pm – 7 pm

Address: 5002 York Blvd., Highland Park, CA 90042

Website: https://withfriends.co/the_pop_hop_books_co_op/events

The People’s Open Mic at Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice – In-Person Event

Happy Women’s History Month y’all! I hope you can join us for The People’s Mic at the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice on March 28th. We can’t wait to see you there. Until then, peace, love, and liberation.

Invited guests and poetry open mic, plus refreshments provided.

$5 donation. No one turned away.

Where: Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice

Date: Saturday, the 28^th

Time: 5 pm

Address: 5278 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90019

Space in the studio room is limited, so be sure to come by early, and reserve a seat on EVENTBRITE!

Emily Goodson is an author, keynote speaker, and strategist committed to reshaping the discourse surrounding disability, intimacy, and workplace culture.

At age eight, Emily experienced a brain injury that resulted in partial paralysis on the left side of her body. After this injury, Emily faced a host of emotional and physical challenges, achieved significant recovery, and emerged empowered to educate others.

Emily’s creative work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times. Dating Disability is her first book.

Gretchen Schreiber grew up between the hills of Kansas and the hospitals of Minnesota but now calls the hills of Los Angeles home. After getting her MFA from USC School of Cinematic Arts, she now works as a professional bookworm for Hello Sunshine, Reese Witherspoon’s media company. She is always down to run away to Disneyland or a bookstore.

From the vulnerable years of childhood, where the world’s gaze magnified her differences, to the uncharted territories of adulthood, where reality and societal expectations clashed with her yearning for intimacy, Dating Disability is a raw and honest exploration of why our differences make us beautiful even when the world would have us think otherwise.

Each of the fifteen stories within this book act as a window into pivotal moments in Goodson’s life, revealing the intricate process of dismantling internal walls and providing takeaways for people looking to date, people in relationships, parents of young adults with disabilities, and many others.

Whether it’s the courage to challenge societal assumptions, the vulnerability to express authentic desires, or the unwavering commitment to self-acceptance, Goodson’s experiences provide a road map for navigating the complexities of life and building a foundation of confidence and self-worth.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Saturday the 28^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://villagewell.com

Melrose Trading Post: L.A. Poet Society at Greenway Arts Alliance at Melrose Trading Post at Fairfax H.S. – In-Person Event

The Melrose Trading Post is a pioneering arts-based marketplace held every Sunday at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, CA with 275 local creative small business vendors, delicious food booths, and local live music.

MTP was founded in 1997 with a mission to champion small businesses, art, and community. The market funds Greenway Arts Alliance’s arts education programming and provides employment and leadership development opportunities for students at Fairfax High School.

JOIN us for Poetry on Demand 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 29^th

Time: 10 am – 5 pm (market); 12 pm – 5 pm (poets on demand)

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

Website: https://instagram.com

Storytime with Phil and Lily Rosenthal & Just Try It at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event

Join us for a special storytime with Phil and Lily Rosenthal, reading their latest book, Just Try It! Someplace New! (A Phil & Lil Book).

This is a free event, but space is limited. Please RSVP so we can be sure to make space for everyone.

In this companion to the instant New York Times bestselling Just Try It! by Netflix star Phil Rosenthal and his daughter Lily, an encouraging dad eases his daughter’s worries about staying at Grandma’s for the first time.

Lil is getting ready to stay with Grandma on her own for the first time. How exciting! Except…what if she only eats broccoli? What if her bed is made of rocks? What if the mailman is a giant elephant?

All these questions make Lil scared, but Phil has the perfect piece of advice for soothing her fears: Just try it. Sometimes we’re scared of what we don’t know, and that’s okay. With a little help, Lil is ready to try.

Phil Rosenthal is the creator and host of the Emmy-nominated Somebody Feed Phil. He also created the hit CBS comedy, Everybody Loves Raymond, which was nominated for over seventy Emmy awards, and won fifteen awards, including for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2003 and 2005. He is also the bestselling author of the book Somebody Feed Phil the Book. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Monica Horan (who played Amy on Everybody Loves Raymond), and they have two children. Visit him at PhilRosenthalWorld.com.

Budding restaurateur and New York Times bestselling author Lily Rosenthal Royal has built a career at the intersection of storytelling, food, and community. She also serves as the creative director of the beloved Los Angeles diner Max & Helen’s.

Luke Flowers is the illustrator of more than fifty children’s books. He illustrated the New York Times bestselling A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: The Poetry of Mister Rogers and Disney’s The Muppet Christmas Carol: The Illustrated Holiday Classic. He is also both author and illustrator of the Moby Shinobi series which has sold more than one million copies. When Luke isn’t in his creative cave he enjoys puppetry, playing banjo, basketball, and outdoor adventures with his family. He lives with his wife and three children in Colorado Springs.

Where: Chevalier’s Books

Date: Sunday the 29^th

Time: 11 am- 11:45 am

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

Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2026-03-29/storytime-phil-and-lily-rosenthal

2026 Culver City Book Festival at Wende Museum – In-Person Event

Join us at the Wende Museum for a day of exploring LA’s literary community—meet local authors, support small presses, get involved with literary nonprofits, and pull up to panels featuring authors like Anna Dorn, Allie Rowbottom, Joss Richard, Allison Raskin, Claire Bidwell Smith, and genuinely too many other amazing people to list here!

Want to table at the fest? Or volunteer? Email bookfest@villagewell.com

PANELS (RSVP to Eventbrite required to attend):

LA Women VS the Void – 12 pm

Behind the Meet-Cute: The Mechanics of Modern Romance – 2 pm

IN THE COURTYARD (no RSVP required):

Women’s Poetry River – 3 pm

Where: The Wende Museum (with Village Well Books & Coffee)

Date: Sunday the 29^th

Time: 10 am – 5 pm

Address: 10808 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230

Website: https://wendemuseum.org/event/culver-city-book-festival-2026/ or https://shop.villagewell.com

Panel: Finding Hope & Ways to Cope @ Culver City Book Fest at Wende Museum, Culver City – In-Person Event

A panel exploring wellness, grief, and mindfulness.

Please note that RSVPing to this event is required for entry.

Mandy Kahn is the author of three poetry collections, the most recent of which is Holy Doors (2023). Her poems have been included in the Best American Poetry anthology, featured in the national newspaper column American Life in Poetry, and read on BBC Radio. She has given readings at Cambridge University, the Getty Museum, MOCA, the Barrick Museum, and the L.A. Times Festival of Books. Her concert of immersive poems at the Getty Museum is the subject of a feature-length documentary, and she has received poetry commissions from the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Craft and Folk Art Museum, Black Mountain Institute, the Getty Museum, and Bridge Projects. Her work was selected by the City of West Hollywood to be featured on a billboard in celebration of National Poetry Month.

Alessandra Olanow is the illustrator and author of I Used to Have a Plan (Harper Design, 2021) and Hello Grief (Harper Design, 2023). Her work explores life’s unexpected turns with honesty and grace, drawing from her own experiences with loss, reinvention, and the courage to begin again. She has also worked as a death doula, an experience that deepened her understanding of life’s cycles of transformation and renewal. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her daughter, Coco.

Claire Bidwell Smith, recognized as one of today’s foremost experts on grief, is a licensed therapist, international speaker, and the best-selling author of five books published in 22 countries. Claire has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, MSNBC, CNN, Scientific American, Goop, Oprah and many more outlets. Led by her own experience in grief and fueled by her work in hospice and private practice, Claire strives to provide support for all kinds of people experiencing all kinds of loss. www.clairebidwellsmith.com

Christiane Wolf, MD, PhD is a former physician turned mindfulness and Insight meditation teacher. She is the author of Mindfulness and Self-Compassion for Chronic Pain and co-author of A Clinician’s Guide to Teaching Mindfulness. She is the teacher in residence for the popular weekly mindfulness meditation class at the Wende Museum and a senior teacher at InsightLA. To learn more about Christiane, please visit http://www.christianewolf.com.

Barry Goldstein received his Doctor of Psychology degree in Clinical Psychology in 1995 specializing in psychological testing and consulting. He is now a grief counselor

Where: Wende Museum

Date: Sunday, the29^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am

Address: 10808 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/panel-finding-hope-ways-to-cope

Burning Issues Book Club: Pleasure Activism via Bel Canto Books – In-Person Event

Participantswill discuss Pleasure Activism; The Politics of Feeling Good by author adrienne maree brown.

Pleasure Activism explores how pleasure and healing are central to social justice, challenging the idea that activism must be grueling work. Drawing from Black feminist thought, it argues that reclaiming pleasure is a political act, using essays, interviews, and poems to discuss topics like sex work, climate change, race, and gender through the lens of joy and radical self-love. The book is part of the Emergent Strategy series and features contributions from thinkers like Audre Lorde and Toni Cade Bambara.

Where: Bel Canto Bookstore

Date: Sunday the 29^th

Time: 12 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Instagram: @laquackclub

Email: laquackchat@gmail.com

We will be discussing the book in its entirety; however, please don’t feel discouraged from attending if you haven’t finished it. Your input in the discussion is both valued and appreciated.

We aim to create a collaborative environment and a safe space for everyone. We encourage feedback on the book and invite readers of all levels to join us. Our goal is to learn and grow together as a community.

We have a zero-tolerance policy for hate. Any form of homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, classism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, etc., will result in immediate removal from this space. Please be respectful.

As the date approaches, we will send out reminders. Thank you for your interest, and we will be in touch soon.

Where: South Bay LGBTQ Center

Date: Sunday, the29^th

Time: 12 pm – 1 pm

Address: 16610 Crenshaw Blvd., Torrance, CA 90504

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/quacks-queer-book-club-tickets-1984417308589

OC Poet Laureate Office Hours with Gustavo Hernandez at LibroMobile Bookstore, Santa Ana – In-Person Event

Calling all writers and poets: OC Poet Laureate, Gustavo Hernández, is hosting office hours 12 pm – 2 pm on Sunday, March 29^th at LibroMobile.

Where: LibroMobile Bookstore

Date: Sunday, the29^th

Time: 12 pm – 2 pm

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

Website: https://www.libromobile.com/event-details/oc-poet-laureate-office-hours-with-gustavo-hernandez-1-2

Panel: LA Women VS the Void @ Culver City Book Fest at Wende Museum, Culver City – In-Person Event

Join us for a panel exploring the madness of modernity.

Please note that RSVPing to this event is required for entry.

“Women Vs. The Void” is one of the fastest growing categories in fiction and Los Angeles is one of the fastest growing literary scenes. Come hear some of the best and most exciting voices discuss L.A., writing and the danger and necessity of fighting the void in our times.

Anna Dorn is the author of the novels Perfume and Pain, Exalted, Vagablonde, and American Spirits. She was a Lambda Literary Fellow and Exalted was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She lives in Los Angeles.

Ruth Madievsky is the author of national bestselling novel, All-Night Pharmacy, winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction, the National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction, and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction. Her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry appear in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, The Cut, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles, where she works as a clinical pharmacist.

Kim Samek is a half-Thai Emmy-nominated writer and television producer whose credits include MTV’s Catfish and PBS’s WordGirl. She studied German literature and creative writing at Stanford University. Her stories have appeared in Guernica, Ecotone, Electric Literature, North American Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, swamp pink, Gulf Coast, Southern Humanities Review, The Threepenny Review, Story, and ZYZZYVA. Her short fiction has won a Pushcart Prize. A native of Seattle, she lives in Los Angeles.

Allie Rowbottom is the author of the novel Aesthetica and the memoir Jell-O Girls, a New York Times Editors’ Choice Selection, Indie Next Pick, and Real Simple Best Book of the Year. Allie’s essays and short fiction can be found in Vanity Fair, Salon, Lit Hub, No Tokens, NY Tyrant, The Drunken Canal, Alta Journal, Bitch, and elsewhere. She holds a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the writer Jon Lindsey.

Nada Alic is the author of Bad Thoughts, a New York Times Editors’ Choice Pick and finalist for the Danuta Gleed award. Her novel is forthcoming from Knopf.

Where: Wende Museum

Date: Sunday, the29^th

Time: 12 pm – 1 pm

Address: 10808 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/panel-la-women-vs-the-void-the-culver-city-book-festival-tickets-1984339933157

Off the Page: Power of Poetry Reading from Mazer Lesbian Archives at West Hollywood City Council Chambers – In-Person Event

Join moderator and poet laureate Jen Cheng and featuring the inaugural poet laureate of Los Angeles Eloise Klein Healy for a Power of Poetry Reading from the Mazer Lesbian Archives in West Hollywood.

In addition to wonderful guest readers Lisa Freeman and Simone Wallace, please note this special gathering includes two fellow poets laureate who are actively doing extraordinary work for their communities: Ashley “Ms.AyeVee” Vargas (Clark County, NV) and Camille Hernandez (Anaheim, CA).

Ashley “Ms.AyeVee” Vargas is an award-winning Afro-latina Literary Artist from Las Vegas & the 2024-2026 Clark County Poet Laureate. She has been recognized by NPR & the US Congress for advancing the cause of literacy & extraordinary literary achievement. In 2022 Ms. AyeVee was an official TEDx speaker for Las Vegas.

Camille Hernandez (she/they) is Anaheim’s third Poet Laureate (2024-2026), the first Black and Filipina woman to hold the position. She authored the books Motherlands (Finishing Line Press, 2025) and The Hero and the Whore (Westminster John Knox Press, 2023). In 2025, OC Register named Hernandez as one of Orange County’s 125 most influential people.

Eloise Klein Healy, the author of nine books of poetry and three chapbooks, was named the first Poet Laureate of Los Angeles in 2012. She was the founding chair of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles, where she is Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing Emerita.

Free ticketed admission & parking.

Where: West Hollywood City Council Chambers

Date: Sunday, the29^th

Time: 2 pm – 3:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Book Signing: Stuart Gibbs & Ape Escape @ Culver City Book Fest at Wende Museum, Culver City – In-Person Event

Join us for a signing with New York Times-bestselling author Stuart Gibbs.

Reserve your spot at website!

In Ape Escape, when a baby gorilla is stolen from an orphanage in Rwanda, Teddy, his parents, and an old family friend find themselves in a race against time to save it. Teddy has to piece together clues to figure out where the little ape is being taken while traveling through some of the most incredible—and dangerous—terrain in the world.

At the same time, he’s long-distance consulting with Summer to help solve another mystery back at FunJungle. Between facing down lions on the Serengeti and chasing poachers through the bazaars of Zanzibar, will Teddy be able to find the baby gorilla before it’s too late?

Stuart Gibbs is the author of five bestselling middle grade series: Spy School, FunJungle, Charlie Thorne, Moon Base Alpha and The Last Musketeer. He also writes for TV and film. Before all that, he studied capybaras, the world’s largest rodents. Really.

Where: Wende Museum

Date: Sunday, the29^th

Time: 12 pm – 1 pm

Address: 10808 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230

Website: https://villagewell.com

Panel: Behind the Meet-Cute: Exploring the Mechanics of Modern Romance @ Culver City Book Fest at Wende Museum, Culver City – In-Person Event

Join us for a panel on all things romance.

Please note that RSVPing to this event is required for entry.

Joss Richard is the International Bestselling author of It’s Different This Time. She has worked at companies such as Hello Sunshine and Reese’s Book Club, The Walt Disney Company, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Netflix, and Paramount. She’s also the creator and host of Three’s Company, Too: A Rewatch Podcast and has been formally recognized with a Daytime Emmy Award. Born in Toronto, Ontario, to Filipino immigrant parents, Richard currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Myah Ariel is a USA Today Bestselling romance novelist with degrees in film and journalism. She has worked in entertainment, nonprofits, and academia. Through her novels When I Think of You and No Ordinary Love\, Myah champions inclusive love stories.

Allison Raskin is a New York Times bestselling author, relationship coach and mental health advocate, in addition to being an accomplished screenwriter and content creator. She co-hosts the podcast Starter Marriage and created the Emotional Support Lady Instagram and Substack. Her debut romcom, Save the Date, was published in 2025 and her follow up Compulsively Yours is set to release in December, 2026.

Clare Osongco is a mixed Filipino American author living in Los Angeles who likes to write about falling in love, messy family relationships, and ghosts. She is the author of the young adult romance Midnights With You. Her adult rom com debut, Unfinished Business, is forthcoming from Dell on August 4. You can find her on Instagram at @clareosongco.

Taylor Capizola has been yelling about how much she loves books since she was 15 and has had the honor of doing so professionally since 2021. Raised on the dystopian romances of the 2010s, she finds herself called to stories of hope and resilience. When Taylor isn’t at the store, you can find her solving an unnecessarily difficult number puzzle.

Where: Wende Museum

Date: Sunday, the29^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

Address: 10808 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/behind-the-meet-cute-exploring-the-mechanics-of-modern-romance-ccbf-tickets-1984342842860

Women’s Poetry River Reading Event for Culver City Book Fest at Wende Museum, Culver City – In-Person Event

A poetic celebration of Women’s History Month.

Celebrating Women’s History Month, twelve incredible women writers from Los Angeles and beyond come together for a poetry river in the courtyard of the Wende Museum for the Culver City Book Festival! What is a poetry river? It’s a reading where each poet reads one piece at a time and where each poet’s reading flows into the other. Come hear as this diverse lineup shares their perspectives on womanhood, women’s rights, femininity and the divine feminine, history and culture, contemporary politics, and more!

Born in San Francisco, raised in San José, Barrio Horseshoe, Lorna Dee Cervantes was a self-taught activist by fifteen, taught herself how to run her own printing press and was the founding editor/publisher of MANGO Publications at twenty, and author of the American Book Award-winning Emplumada at twenty-four. A XícanIndX poet (Chumash/Purépecha), Cervantes (PhD/ABD, History of Consciousness) was professor of English for twenty years at the University of Colorado, Boulder, serving as Director of Creative Writing. Cervantes has held faculty positions at the University of Houston, the University of California, Berkeley, where she has served as a UC Regents Lecturer in the English department, and as a Visiting Writer at Yale, Vassar, and others. Awarded two NEA Fellowships, two Pushcart Prizes, a Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Award, state arts grants, and numerous awards for six books of poetry, including her recent collection, April on Olympia, Cervantes has presented her poetry at hundreds of campuses, venues and countries over the past fifty years. Her poems have appeared in hundreds of anthologies and publications (Norton, Heath, Penguin, Poetry). Her newest solo collection, FIRE: Poems Against Pandemic, is forthcoming from El Martillo Press (2026).

Alyesha Wise is an award-winning, published poet, educator & speaker from Camden, N.J. Currently residing in LA, she is the Director of Programming for Street Poets, Inc., an organization mostly serving juvenile injustice-involved youth with mentorship and arts programming. Alyesha has been featured on platforms and in publications such as OWN TV, BET, LA Times, Bustle, Afropunk, PBS, Buzzfeed and more. Other collabs include the ACLU, The Shabazz Center, The Nantucket Project, Brave New Films, and the Google Interstellar Project. Ron Howard once wrote about Alyesha’s work, “Very Powerful.”

Tanzila “Taz” Ahmed is a political strategist, storyteller, and artist creating at the intersection of counternarratives and culture-shifting as a South Asian American Muslim 2nd-gen woman. Her latest poetry collection Grasping at This Planet Just to Believe (Writ Large Projects, 2024) was written over ten years of poetry-a-day for Ramadan meditating on spirituality and resilience in difficult times.

Eve Wood is a Los Angeles-based writer, artist, and art critic. Her writing and poetry has been widely published in magazines and literary journals such as The New Republic, Best American Poetry 1997, The Denver Quarterly, North American Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Santa Monica Review, Poetry, The Seattle Review, and many others. She holds a BFA and MFA (1992, 1994) from California Institute of the Arts and an MFA from UC Irvine (1996) in creative writing. She is the recipient of a Jacob Javits Fellowship and a California Community Foundation Fellowship. Her drawings and paintings have been exhibited nationally and internationally in galleries such as Susanne Vielmetter, Western Project, Ochi Projects, and Track 16 Gallery, which currently represents her. She is the author and/or illustrator of eight collections of poetry and chapbooks. Her forthcoming four-part collection of poems, Diane Arbus Goes Shopping will be published by DoppelHouse Press.

Jasmine Williams is an actress, poet, & creator from South Central Los Angeles. She is a graduate of San Francisco State University, where she received her B.A. in Dramatic Arts & Playwriting. She has been featured on HBO, TV One, & All Def Digital, just to name a few. She is currently one of the hosts of “Da Poetry Lounge”, one of the largest spoken word and open mic venues in the country. Jasmine creates art to inspire and amplify the voices of those brave enough to be heard.

Macondo fellow Margaret Elysia Garcia is the author of the poetry collection the daughterland (El Martillo Press, 2023), of the short story collection Graft (Tolsun Books, 2022), and the poetry chapbooks Iconistas!, and Burn Scars, (Lit Kit Collective, 2025, 2022). She’s the co-editor of the anthology Red Flag Warning: Mutual Aid and Survival in California’s Fire Country (AK Press, 2025). Her second short story collection Chicana Noir and Other Stories will be published in 2026 by El Martillo Press. She’s the recipient of Chapman University’s non-tuition fellowship for Creative Writing.

Teresa Mei Chuc was born in Saigon, Vietnam. Shortly after the Vietnam War, Chuc, her mother, and her brother were granted political asylum and settled in Pasadena, California. Her father remained in a Vietnamese “reeducation camp” for nine years. Chuc earned a BA in philosophy and credentials in primary and secondary education as well as an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College. She is the author of three collections of poetry: Red Thread (2012), Keeper of the Winds (2014), and Invisible Light (2018). Her many chapbooks include Truth is Black Rubber (2010), Year of the Hare (2013), and How One Loses Notes and Sounds (2016). Chuc’s poetry engages memory, trauma, healing, and her family’s particular history of the Vietnam War. In an interview with Rattle magazine, Chuc said of the poems in Red Thread, “I felt an almost urgent need to document my family’s experiences for them and for my children…I felt that there was this big story about war and humanity and my family was part of it, not by choice but by chance.”

Briana Muñoz is a poet from Southern California. She is the author of Loose Lips (Prickly Pear Publishing, 2019) Everything is Returned to the Soil (FlowerSong Press, 2021), and Matriarchy: Sacred Poems (El Martillo Press, 2025). Her work has been published in the anthologies: Somos Xicanas, Reimagine America, and Beat Not Beat, as well as on websites and in literary journals: Cultural Daily, The Oakland Arts Review, Dryland Literary Journal, Angel City Review, and several other publications.

Jennifer Espinoza is a trans woman poet and the author of I Don’t Want to Be Understood (Alice James Books, 2024); There Should Be Flowers (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016); and i’m alive/it hurt/i love it (Boost House, 2014). A creative writing instructor, she lives in Riverside, California.

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

Janet Gonzalez is a poet and spoken word artist who has brought her stories of the immigrant experience to the Los Angeles poetry scene for decades. Having featured and performed at venues such as Da Poetry Lounge and A Mic and Dim Lights, Flowers of Fire at Corazon del Pueblo and various colleges and universities, she was also a part of the Boom Crew with poets including: Nikki Blak, Kat Magill and Judy Holiday. In 2025, she hosted Santuario Open Mic at Mercado La Paloma.

Consuelo is an artivist, student, and Pushcart Prize nominee from the Inland Empire. Her debut poetry book, Water Damage, is published through Riot of Roses Publishing House, and it explores divinity, mental health, queerness, and Chicanisma. You can find her at open mics across the IE and LA, experimental art shows, your local public library, or spiritual apparitions.

Where: Wende Museum

Date: Sunday, the29^th

Time: 3 pm – 4:30 pm

Address: 10808 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/womens-poetry-river-tickets-1984345351363

Encore: Where Songs Become Poems @ Culver City Book Fest at Wende Museum, Culver City – In-Person Event

A panel featuring Los Angeles poets whose work responds to contemporary music.

From Flowersong to Shiking, poetry is inherently musical. The panel features poets from Los Angeles whose work responds to contemporary music––including Punk, Hip-Hop, Blues, and other genres in pop culture. Poets create lyrical flames, navigating the fast-pace changes in culture and technology. The music we hear today may have answers for the collective liberating vision of the future.

Please note that RSVPing to this event is required for entry.

Born and raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles, Daryl Gussin is a writer and musician who has been awkwardly standing around at punk shows for the last twenty-something years. Thankfully at some point in his late teens he decided to become a little more productive, and has been working on zines, setting up shows, and playing in bands consecutively since then. Jessica Mills says his voice, “Rises above the dismal din and resonates with urgency, capturing moments of rebellion and reflection.” His focus revolves around the honest, bittersweet, and ultimately triumphant aspects of counter-culture and its flavorful inhabitants. The heartbreaks, the implosions, and the defiant victories. Community over-commercialism, create and destroy.

Nikolai Garcia is the son of Mexican immigrants and grew up in South Central Los Angeles. His poems have been published in Huizache, Mobile Data Mag, Razorcake, Latino Book Review and various other journals and anthologies. His second chapbook, All the Sad Music, was published by DSTL Arts (2025). He is cohost, (with Mauricio Moreno), of Trenches Full of Poets, an open mic in Long Beach.

Alyesha Wise is an award-winning, published poet, educator and speaker from Camden, N.J. Currently residing in LA, she is the Director of Programming for Street Poets, Inc., an organization mostly serving injustice-impacted youth with mentorship and arts programming. Alyesha has been featured on platforms and in publications such as OWN TV, BET, LA Times, Bustle, Afropunk, PBS, Buzzfeed and more. Other collabs include the ACLU, The Shabazz Center, The Nantucket Project, Brave New Films and the Google Interstellar Project. Ron Howard once wrote about Alyesha’s work, “Very Powerful.” My Older Brother, A Famous Rapper, is Alyesha’s latest book of poetry, released in fall 2025 by El Martillo Press.

Douglas Manuel was born in Anderson, Indiana and now resides in Whittier, California. He received a BA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University, an MFA in poetry from Butler University, and a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Testify (2017) and Trouble Funk (2023). His poems and essays can be found in numerous literary journals, magazines, and websites, most recently Zyzzyva, Pleiades, and the New Orleans Review. A recipient of the Dana Gioia Poetry Award and a fellowship from the Borchard Foundation Center on Literary Arts, he is an assistant professor of English at Whittier College and teaches at Spalding University’s low-res MFA program.

Iván Salinas is a chilango poet and zinester based in the SFV. He’s the co-founder of Drifter Zine a publication highlighting artists from LA and beyond. His chapbook Dealer: Poesía Carcacha is a bilingual collection published by There’s Only Peace in Death Press in 2026. His writings have been published in The Acentos Review, Mobile Data Mag, Broken Lens Journal, and Razorcake.

Where: Wende Museum

Date: Sunday, the29^th

Time: 3:30 pm

Address: 10808 Culver Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/encore-where-songs-become-poems-tickets-1985530078915

Book Celebration: Jill Moser, with Major Jackson and Elena Karina Byrne, & Talking Pictures at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person Event

Join us for a celebration with author Jill Moser, in conversation with Major Jackson and Elena Karina Byrne, for the release of Talking Pictures: Collaborations.

Talking Pictures features an exhilarating chorus of 40 voices: writers, artists, journalists, critics, curators, historians, novelists, scientists, poets, and psychoanalysts. Poets Major Jackson and Elena Karina Byrne with artist Jill Moser will discuss collaboration as a process of reciprocity, outside traditional settings of ekphrasis and in relation to their associative experiences with visual media. There will be a slideshow of the painting collages, alongside a few recordings. After the conversation, there will be a Q&A with the audience.

Jill Moser’s paintings, drawings, prints, and artist’s books have been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the United States and Europe, and featured in prominent collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The National Gallery of Art, The Yale University Art Gallery, The Fogg Art Museum, and The National Library of France. Over the past two decades, Moser has made numerous print editions with Jungle Press, Burnet Editions, Wingate Studios, Landfall Press, Brand X, Collaborative Art Editions, Manneken Press and Bleu Acier. She continues to engage in other collaborative projects with writers, artists, designers, and architects. She has taught at Princeton University, Virginia Commonwealth University, SUNY, and The School of Visual Arts and lectured across the United States. She lives and works in New York.

Major Jackson is the author of six books of poetry, most recently, Razzle Dazzle: New & Selected Poems. He is also the author of A Beat Beyond: The Selected Prose of Major Jackson edited by Amor Kohli. Major lives in Nashville, Tennessee where he is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review. From 2023–2025, he hosted the award-winning podcast The Slowdown. He is the inaugural recipient of the Patricia Cannon Willis Prize for American Poetry from Yale Library.

A Pushcart Prize recipient and author of five poetry collections, Elena Karina Byrne received an MFA in screenwriting (Writing & Contemporary Media) from Antioch University during COVID. Her poetry and non-fiction work can be found in POETRY, Best American Poetry, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, APR, Los Angeles Review of Books, Plume Anthologies, Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, Verse Daily, Reel Verse: Poems About the Movies, The Eloquent Poem: 128 Contemporary Poems and Their Making, Adroit Journal, BOMB, and elsewhere. Elena works as a freelance editor, lecturer, screenwriter, and Programming Consultant & Poetry Stage Manager for The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and Director of Poetry & Interdisciplinary Programs for the historic Ruskin Art Club.

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary arts Center

Date: Sunday, the 29^th

Time: 3 pm – 4:30 pm

Address: 681 Venice Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90291

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/talking-pictures-jill-moser-major-jackson-elena-karina-byrne-tickets-1984582791553

A Conversation with Brandy: Phases at Ricardo Montalban Theatre, Hollywood – In-Person Event

Join us for a Conversation with Brandy to hear her discuss her new book Phases at the Ricardo Montalban Theatre.

Where: Ricardo Montalban Theatre

Date: Sunday, the 29^th

Time: 7 pm

Address: 1615 Vine St., Hollywood, CA 90028

Website: https://www.ticketmaster.com/a-conversation-with-brandy-phases-book-hollywood-california-03-29-2026/event/0B00644286701BF0