Book Club: Pachinko (2 sessions) via Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

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

RSVP:

Email ebarrera@lapl.org for the Google Meet link.

Where: Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 11^th

Time: 4:45 pm – 5:30 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/sun-valley-branch-book-club-0

Evening Book Club: How to Age Gracefully at Manhattan Beach Library, LACL – In-Person Older Adults Event

Patrons can enjoy a facilitated discussion of fiction and nonfiction titles. A limited number of titles are available for attendees at the library. For adults.

May’s Selection: How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley.

When Lydia takes a job running the Senior Citizens’ Social Club three afternoons a week, she assumes she’ll be spending her time drinking tea and playing gentle games of cards. The members of the Social Club, however, are not at all what Lydia was expecting. When the city council threatens to sell the doomed community center building, the members of the Social Club join forces with their tiny friends in the daycare next door—as well as the teenaged father of one of the toddlers and a geriatric dog—to save the building.

Where: Manhattan Beach Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 11^th

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

Address: 1320 Highland Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16129144

Book Club for Adults: She’s No Angel at Vermont Square Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us for a Book Club discussion of She’s No Angel by E. N. Joy. This gripping, emotional novel explores the complexities of faith, redemption, and personal struggle, following a woman whose past and choices challenge expectations of what it means to be “good.” We’ll discuss identity, forgiveness, judgment, and transformation. We’ll look at how faith and real life can collide, and how the story shows resilience, accountability, and the journey to self-understanding. You are welcome to share your thoughts or just listen in a supportive space.

Where: Vermont Square Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Monday the 11^th

Time: 5 pm

Address: 1201 W. 48^th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90037

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-adults-9

Book Discussion for Adults: Carrie Soto Is Back at Sorenson Library, LACL – In-Person Older Adults Event

Come read and discuss the novel Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid. For Adults.

Carrie Soto is a retired tennis player who holds the records for most tournament wins. When her record is tied, she is inspired to make a comeback, to make one last run at another title.

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

Where: Sorenson Library, LACL

Date: Monday the 11^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 6934 Broadway Ave., Whittier, CA 90606

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16117444

YA for Adults Book Club: Zodiac Rising: Descendants of the Zodiac #1 Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss Zodiac Rising: Descendants of the Zodiac #1 by Katie Zhao.

At a secret Manhattan boarding school, the Descendants of the Chinese zodiac have hidden away since the source of their magic—the twelve zodiac statues—was vandalized and lost to time. Thus, a curse befell the Descendants, and they’ve lived as creatures of darkness…until now.

When the lost statues suddenly resurface and a powerful classmate is found dead, all signs point to foul play from the fae. The Descendants finally have the chance to take back what’s rightfully theirs, but to pull off this deadly heist, they must assemble an elite crew:

THE VAMPIRE: After a century of burning hunger, Evangeline is out for blood.

THE SHAPE-SHIFTER: Nicholas yearns to restore justice to his people—and make peace with his past.

THE MORTAL: Alice seeks the truth of her mysterious heritage, and this mission may be the key.

THE WEREWOLF: Tristan will do anything to break free from the monstrous wolf inside.

Only these four have the power to save the Descendants, but the wrath of the fae waits at every turn. One wrong move and the fate of their kind will come crashing down.

Katie Zhao is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where she earned a BA in English and political science in 2017 and a Master of Accounting degree in 2018. She is the author of the Dragon Warrior series, How We Fall Apart, Last Gamer Standing, and the Winnie Zeng series. She’s a passionate advocate for diverse representation in literature and media.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Monday the11^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://cellardoorbookstore.com/event/2026-05-11/ya-adults-book-club-zodiac-rising

Robertson Readers: Nettle and Bone at Roberston Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us every second Monday of the month for an engaging book discussion. This month, we will be reading Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher (243 pages, published in 2022). This novel won the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Copies will be available for checkout at the next meeting or at the Circulation Desk. New members are always welcome!

If you have any questions, please email our Adult Librarian, Michele, at rbrtsn@lapl.org.

Date: Monday the 11^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-adults-9

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 11^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92501

Website: https://www.facebook.com

Stephanie Fairyington, with Alice Clements, & Ugly: Letter to My Daughter at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Stephanie Fairyington, in conversation with Alice Clements, will discuss Ugly: Letter to My Daughter.

A tender, moving, and insightful account of queer motherhood and an interrogation of life on the margins of American culture as a self-described “ugly” woman.

Ugly is a word with fangs that can kill a woman’s self-esteem in one bite. Edicts about how women should look, behave, and think are the brutal forge through which they are made—not born. And to defy the pretty imperative is to become invisible. It can be a hard thing to admit to yourself, let alone to your child—to say the words, “I am ugly,” or “I am seen as ugly.” But early on in her motherhood journey, watching her young daughter begin to wrestle with beauty standards, Stephanie Fairyington felt compelled to face her own demons, to unpack her own ugly self-perception, one that she could trace to her own childhood, in order to conquer this seemingly immoveable frontier, far too taboo even among women to broach—the ways in which women’s lives are unfairly contoured by the nature of their looks.

The multiple iterations of ugliness that Fairyington saw in her young self—her physical appearance, her unavoidably obvious queerness, and her dissonant gender expression—are not present in her beautiful and traditionally feminine daughter. But Fairyington’s old feelings of inadequacy take on new meaning as she confronts fresh insecurities around her role as the non-biological mother in her relationship, exacerbating wounds from a lifetime of being treated differently: from the poverty of her genetic inheritance to questions about her parentage to doubts about the legitimacy of her family.

Interlacing cultural history and analysis with memoir, Ugly is a probing investigation into cultural norms and the formation of our aesthetic sense of self. Fairyington contrasts her so-called ugliness with her daughter’s attraction and adherence to beauty ideals, a tender and tenuous condition that by age seven she was already walking a tightrope to maintain. By sharing the history of her troubled self-image, Fairyington invites us to go rogue, to invent a new language and logic to overthrow all the ways that women have been cultivated to hate themselves.

NOTE: See site for link and details.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Monday the 11^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 1 818 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood, CA 90069

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-05-11/stephanie-fairyington

At Skylight: Avigayl Sharp, with Sarah Rose Etter, & Offseason: A Novel at Skylight – In-Person Event

Avigayl Sharp, in conversation with Sarah Rose Etter, will discuss Offseason: A Novel.

In Avigayl Sharp’s brilliant and bold debut novel, Offseason, our fiercely observant but self-deluded narrator finds herself teaching at an all-girls boarding school on the Eastern Seaboard. In between manic lectures that veer from Charles Dickens’s Bleak House to the childhood maltreatment of her beloved Iosif Stalin and the generational legacy of the Holocaust, she consorts and canoodles with the town’s locals—including the possibly disgraced male teacher whose job she’s taken over—implicating everyone she meets in her obsessive quest to pin down where, exactly, her own life went wrong.

Though she’s vowed never to return to her hometown in the middle of the country, the holiday season sends her careening back into the orbit of her overbearing, maladjusted family. Drunk at a bar on the frigid afternoon of the seventh night of Chanukah, she encounters the figure from her adolescence who may or may not be responsible for violating her, bringing her down, and ruining her life. The past collides with the present—but catharsis and closure are nowhere to be found. Not at the bar. Not in her childhood home. And certainly not in the unruly spirals of her mind.

Serious yet irreverent with a delirious velocity, Offseason reimagines the conversation around trauma while reckoning with the doomed project of “speaking your truth,” the compulsion to repeat, and whether we can be transformed by art and love.

Avigayl Sharp is a writer from Chicago. Her fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, New England Review, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers and is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, the DISQUIET Literary Prize, and fellowships from Yaddo and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Offseason is her first novel.

Sarah Rose Etter is the author of the chapbook Tongue Party and The Book of X, winner of a Shirley Jackson Award for best novel. Her work has appeared in Time, Guernica, BOMB, the Bennington Review, The Cut, VICE, and elsewhere. She has been awarded residences at the Jack Kerouac House, the Disquiet International program in Portugal, and the Gullkistan in Iceland. She earned her BA in English from Pennsylvania State University and her MFA in fiction from Rosemont College. She lives in Los Angeles.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Skylight

Date: Monday the 11^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-avigayl-sharp-presents-offseason-w-sarah-rose-etter

Andrew Forrester, with Elissa Sussman, & How the Story Goes at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Andrew Forrester, in conversation with Elissa Sussman, will discuss How the Story Goes: A Novel.

In this heartwarming, bookish debut, a young widower of a famous children’s fantasy author teams up with a down-on-her-luck MFA dropout to write the final book in his late wife’s series, and find their own perfect ending along the way.

Whit Longacre has a monumental task and a looming deadline. After his wife, Helen, died of cancer, she left him with their grieving eight-year-old daughter and a surprise in her will: the small task of writing the final book in her mega-popular children’s fantasy series for her legions of waiting fans.

Whit is the author of moderately successful (but well-received!) literary mysteries. He doesn’t have the first idea of how to complete Helen’s beloved series, and his enigmatic wife seems to have left no clues behind on how the story is supposed to end. Writer’s block is one thing, but to fail in fulfilling his wife’s last wish? Whit is guilt-ridden and dodging calls in the school pick-up line from Helen’s publisher and agent as the deadline fast approaches.

Then Whit meets Merritt Pryor, who works at the local bookstore in their small New England town. Merritt has moved back home after a disastrous affair led to her dropping out of her prestigious MFA program. When Whit realizes that Merritt is a superfan of the Greenwood Castle series, they come up with a plan to tackle the book together. For the first time in years, Merritt finds herself falling back in love with writing…and perhaps with the coauthor offering her the opportunity of a lifetime.

But when Whit uncovers a buried secret about Helen’s final wishes, he questions everything about what he and Merritt have created together, endangering the tender, electrifying partnership that has transformed their lives.

Can Whit and Merritt come up with an ending that feels right, for both a beloved series and for their battered hearts?

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Monday the 11^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-05-11/andrew-forrester

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 11^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)

Website: Free Workshop Page

Live Talks LA Presents: Erin Walsh, with Mindy Kaling, at Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre at New Roads School – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Erin Walsh, in conversation with Minday Kaling, will discuss The Art of intentional dressing: Your Essential Style Guide for Manifesting a Magnetic Life.

Find your personal style, dress for your destiny, and manifest your most magnetic life in this ultimate guide from a renowned celebrity stylist.

Erin Walsh is a highly regarded celebrity stylist and creative director. Her visionary approach to fashion has evolved into a movement centered around the idea that style can empower you to manifest the life of your dreams. Erin’s client list includes modern icons such as Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez. Her style expertise is sought after by publications, podcasts and brands, including Vogue, Bulgari, Shiseido, Versace, Tiffany and Co, Ralph Lauren, and Rare Beauty. She is also the co-founder of SBJCT: Journal, an activism-focused digital platform that features extraordinary people and the subjects that move them. Erin lives in New York City with her husband, photographer Christian Hogstedt, and their three children, Matilda, Jude, and Hugo.

Mindy Kaling is an acclaimed, Emmy-nominated, Tony Award-winning producer, bestselling author, director, and actor. Time magazine not only named her one of the most 100 influential people, but her company, Kaling International, was also named one of the 100 most influential companies. Among her many achievements, she most recently launched Mindy’s Book Studio, an imprint dedicated to spotlighting new and under-represented voices in fiction and memoir.

Where: Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre at New Roads School

Date: Monday the 11^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Join The Pause project Workshops a Community Writing Circle.

A quiet hour to pause.

To listen inward.

To remember you are not alone.

The Pause Project Writing Circle is a guided, gently facilitated space for reflection and connection. Through simple prompts and shared presence, we create room to slow down and return to ourselves — together.

No writing experience needed.

No pressure to share.

Just come as you are.

Pricing:

Single day workshop: $10

4 day workshop: $30

Where: Arvida Book Company

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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 12^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Website: Event Page

NEW! Toddler Tuesdays: A Travelin’ Storytime – Session 1 at Fairview Branch 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: Fairview Branch Library, SMPL

Date: Tuesday the 5^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11 am

Address: 2101 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405

Website: Event Page

Virtual Book Club: This Is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman via La Crescenta Library, LACL – Online Event

Join us for the weekly Virtual Book Club. In May we will be discussing This Is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman. For adults.

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

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

Week 2: May 12: Chapters 5, Kumquat – 8, Sheba — Pages 81 – 146

Week 3: May 19: Chapters 9, Tanglewood – 13, The Last Grown-Up — Pages 147 – 230

Week 4: May 26: Chapters 14, $ – 17, Poppy — Pages 231 – to the end of the book.

Was this just a brief skirmish, or the beginning of a thirty-year feud? In the Rubenstein family, it could go either way. When their beloved older sister passes away, Sylvia and Helen Rubinstein are unmoored. A misunderstanding about apple cake turns into decades of stubborn silence. Busy with their own lives-divorces, dating, career setbacks, college applications, bat mitzvahs, and ballet recitals-their children do not want to get involved. As for their grandchildren? Impossible. With This is Not About Us, master storyteller Allegra Goodman, whose prior collection was heralded as “one of the most astute and engaging books about American family life” (The Boston Globe), returns to the form and subject that endeared her to legions of readers. Sharply observed and laced with humor, This is Not About Us is a story of growing up and growing old, the weight of parental expectations, and the complex connection between sisters. A big-hearted book about the love that binds a family across generations.

Where: La Crescenta Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)

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

Author Talk: Dr. Vivienne Ming & Robot-Proof via Virtual Program, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us to hear Dr. Vivienne Ming present and discuss Robot-Proof: When Machines Have All the Answers, Build Better People.

In Robot-Proof, Dr. Vivienne Ming helps readers grasp the ugly and the amazing of how individuals, companies, and societies will respond to the changes that are already taking hold due to the advent of AI. Robot-Proof is a book about people, exploring what it means to be human in an increasingly automated world.

This book presents, then answers, pressing questions that readers may or may not have thought of themselves, such as:

What predicts long-term life outcomes across millions of little kids?

Why is the Informational-Exploration Paradox the most terrifying phenomenon you’ve never heard of?

What predicts the smartest team and how will AI change it?

Why are ill-posed problems the future work, education, and a robot-proof humanity?

With poignant insight and delicate care to keep us grounded in the human perspective, Robot-Proof is an entertaining and thought-provoking read for all individuals seeking to understand the next steps in a new and completely unprecedented world.

Register today to take part in the discussion!

Dr. Vivienne Ming explores maximizing human capacity as a theoretical neuroscientist, delusional inventor, and demented Author. Over her career she’s founded 7 startups, been chief scientist at 2 others, and founded The Human Trust, a philanthropic data trust and “mad science incubator” building a foundation model for human development. She co-founded Possibility Sciences to advance scientific discovery via massive scale hybrid intelligence. She also develops AI tools for learning at home and in school, models of bias in hiring and promotion, and neurotechnologies for dementia, TBI, and postpartum depression.

In her free time, Vivienne designs AI systems to treat her son’s diabetes, predict manic episodes in bipolar sufferers, and reunite orphan refugees with extended family members. For relaxation, she writes science fiction and spends time with her wife and children. Vivienne was named one of “10 Women to Watch in Tech” by Inc. Magazine and one of the BBC’s 100 Women in 2017. She is featured frequently for her research and inventions in The Financial Times, The Atlantic, Quartz Magazine and The New York Times.

Where: Virtual Program, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16208755

NEW! Toddler Tuesdays: A Travelin’ Storytime – Session 2 at Fairview Branch 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: Fairview Branch Library SMPL

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 11:30 am – 12 pm

Address: 2101 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405

Website: Event Page

One Book One Coast Book Discussion: They Called Us Enemy at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for the One Book One Coast Book Discussion of They Called Us Enemy by George Takai. For adults.

This Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, join us for a discussion of They Called Us Enemy by George Takei. For adults.

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, is a graphic memoir recounting Takei’s childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Copies of the book are available at Customer Service and Libby.

Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16069202

Poetry Open Mic via Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event

Share a poem you wrote or a poem you love. You are also welcome to just listen and enjoy.

RSVP:

To receive a Zoom invitation, please contact wwood@lapl.org.

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 6 pm

Address: 1246 Glendon Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-open-mic-0

One Book One Coast Book Club: They Called Us Enemy at Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for the One Book One Coast Book Discussion of They Called Us Enemy by George Takai. For adults.

This Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, join us for a community reading program of exceptional scope – one book for all of the west coast. We will discuss They Called Us Enemy by George Takei. For adults.

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, is a graphic memoir recounting Takei’s childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Copies of the book are available at Customer Service and Libby.

Where: Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16110987

Poetry Open Mic via Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event

Share a poem you wrote or a poem you love. You are also welcome to just listen and enjoy.

RSVP:

To receive a Zoom invitation, please contact wwood@lapl.org.

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 6 pm

Address: 1246 Glendon Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-open-mic-0

The 3rd Tuesday Book Club: The Perks of Being a Wallflower at Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us for a lively discussion of The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. All are welcome!.

Where: Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 6:30 pm

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

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

Silver Lake Book Club: The Years at Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss The Years by Annie Ernaux. This club is held in person in the Community Meeting Room. Copies of the book are available at the Reference Desk.

New members are always welcome!

Where: Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: 2411 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90039

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/silver-lake-book-club-3

World Cultures Reading Circle Book Discussion: A Burning at Westchester – Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Please join the World Cultures Reading Circle in the Community Room to discuss A Burning by Megha Mamjumdar.

New members are always welcome!

Where: Westchester – Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 6:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/world-cultures-reading-circle-book-club-discussion

One Book One Coast Book Club: They Called Us Enemy at Leland R. Weaver Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for the One Book One Coast Book Discussion of They Called Us Enemy by George Takai. For adults.

This Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, join us for a community reading program of exceptional scope – one book for all of the west coast. We will discuss They Called Us Enemy by George Takei. For adults.

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, is a graphic memoir recounting Takei’s childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II.

Where: Leland R. Weaver Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: 4035 Tweedy Blvd., South Gate, CA 90280 

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16259780

Author Visit: Ed Lin, with Martin Wong, & The Dead Can’t Make a Living at Rosemead Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us to hear Ed Lin discuss The Dead Can’t Make a Living, the latest installment in his Taipei Night Market mystery series. He is joined by Martin Wong for a sharp, wide-ranging discussion on literature, culture, and community. For adults, ages 18 and up.

Ed Lin has been psychically connected with Martin Wong since reading Giant Robot three decades ago. Lin, a native New Yorker of Taiwanese and Chinese descent, is the first writer to win three Asian American Literary Awards. The latest installment of his mystery series set in Taipei, The Dead Can’t Make a Living, was published in April. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Cindy Cheung, and son.

A reader and fan of Ed Lin since his earliest works, Martin Wong was the co-creator and editor of all 68 issues of Giant Robot zine, which covered Asian, Asian American, and hybrid subcultures from 1994–2010, and organizer of the Save Music in Chinatown series of all-ages punk matinee benefit shows from 2013–2022. He has been a regular contributor to the non-profit punk zine Razorcake since 2019 and has recently enjoyed speaking gigs at the Los Angeles Public Library, Natural History Museum, Hammer Museum, San Diego Comic-Con, and other choice locations.

Where: Rosemead Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: 8800 Valley Blvd., Rosemead, CA 91770

A socialite living in late-1930s New York City disappears without a trace in this historical novel, Unseasonably Cold, Amy Ephron’s elegant, melancholy noir of secrets, misapprehensions, and deceptions.

Replete with beautifully observed period detail and sharply drawn characters, Unseasonably Cold is classic storytelling, a mystery crafted with an artist’s eye.

Rendered in Ephron’s lovely, austere literary prose, it is utterly worthy of the era it depicts, when the polite mask of high society’s mannered calm disguised the turbulence just beneath; a mirror for the terrible events swirling in Europe at the lead-up to the Second World War.

“New York, 1939: A year has passed since Jane Henry, a popular columnist and heiress to a publishing fortune, vanished without a trace. No one’s taken the news quite so hard as her best friend, Liza Simon, the last person Jane lunched with before her disappearance. Liza has never been able to forget one of the last things Jane said to her: “Billy…has turned ‘unseasonably cold.'” Billy Henry is Jane’s husband, a stoic trial attorney who’s seemed unemotional ever since Jane’s unexplained absence. When Liza confronts Billy, he admits that Jane had threatened to leave him before she went missing; he also confesses that he’s become involved with a new woman. The investigation cleared him months ago, but Liza isn’t convinced. When a newspaper article references a “possible break” in the case, Liza is disturbed to learn that the new information implicates her own brother (and Jane’s beau before Billy), Timothy Simon. Timothy was a person of interest earlier in the investigation, and he’s recalled from his job in London to answer for some incriminating new evidence. If Liza wants to clear her brother, she’ll have to figure out the truth about Jane’s fate. Ephron inhabits the points of view of several of her characters, but the writing is particularly alive when she’s aligned with Liza. Here, Liza suspects that reporter Ben Hart, who once saved her from drowning, may be using their connection to get the story: “The salty taste of the ocean, the moment of distinct fear, when she felt the wave roll over and take her further out to sea, his swiftness at reaching her. He could be gaming her.”

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Make Believe is bestselling children’s author Mac Barnett’s rallying cry for art and imagination, and a celebration of the power of storytelling in all our lives. It’s an incisive, intimate, and timely invitation to approach children’s literature not only as an art form worthy of deep study and criticism, but as a portal into the lives of the children. And at a time when we are faced with a national literacy crisis, he champions the profound joys of literature and the importance of reading for pleasure.

What if children are a great audience for art?

What if they are in fact better equipped to engage deeply with stories than adults?

What if humans’ ability to appreciate art is, if not innate, awakened early in childhood?

Well, then we’d better do our best to make some good kids’ books.

Written with humor and academic rigor, Make Believe reads like a letter from your smartest and funniest friend.

Includes spreads from Goodnight Moon and Busy, Busy Town, illustrations by Caldecott Medalist Jon Klassen, and cover art by celebrated illustrator Carson Ellis.

Mac Barnett is the ninth U.S. National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, appointed by the Library of Congress and Every Child a Reader. He’s a New York Times-bestselling author of stories for children and the writer, with Jon Klassen, of Looking at Picture Books, a newsletter for adults about how picture books work. Mac’s work has been translated into more than 30 languages and sold more than 5 million copies worldwide. Mac’s books have won many prizes, including two Caldecott Honors, three New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Awards, three E.B. White Read Aloud Awards, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, Germany’s Jugendliteraturpreis, China’s Chen Bochui International Children’s Literature Award, The Netherlands’ Silver Griffel, and Italy’s Premio Orbil.

Hannah Goldfield is a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine, covering food and restaurant culture in a column called “On and Off the Menu,” and a lifelong student of children’s literature.

Where: Lincoln Middle School

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

Address: 1501 California Ave,, Santa Monica, CA 90403

Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2026-05-12/mac-barnett-make-believe

Activism Book Club: Not a “Nation of Immigrants” at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Join us for the newest addition to the Village Well Book Club family, the Activism Book Club!

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

This May, we’ll examine and discuss Not “A Nation of Immigrants” by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.

This book debunks the pervasive and self-congratulatory myth that our country is proudly founded by and for immigrants, and urges readers to embrace a more complex and honest history of the United States

Whether in political debates or discussions about immigration around the kitchen table, many Americans, regardless of party affiliation, will say proudly that we are a nation of immigrants. In this bold new book, historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz asserts this ideology is harmful and dishonest because it serves to mask and diminish the US’s history of settler colonialism, genocide, white supremacy, slavery, and structural inequality, all of which we still grapple with today.

She explains that the idea that we are living in a land of opportunity—founded and built by immigrants—was a convenient response by the ruling class and its brain trust to the 1960s demands for decolonialization, justice, reparations, and social equality. Moreover, Dunbar-Ortiz charges that this feel good—but inaccurate—story promotes a benign narrative of progress, obscuring that the country was founded in violence as a settler state, and imperialist since its inception.

While some of us are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, others are descendants of white settlers who arrived as colonizers to displace those who were here since time immemorial, and still others are descendants of those who were kidnapped and forced here against their will. This paradigm shifting new book from the highly acclaimed author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States charges that we need to stop believing and perpetuating this simplistic and a historical idea and embrace the real (and often horrific) history of the United States.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: Event Page

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 12^th

Time: 7 pm – 10 pm

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

Website: Instagram Page

Caroline Bicks & Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stphen King at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Join author Carline Bicks to discuss her fascinating, first-of-its-kind exploration of Stephen King and his most iconic early books, based on groundbreaking research and interviews with King—all conducted by the first scholar to be given extended access to his private archives.

After Caroline Bicks was named the University of Maineʼs inaugural Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, she became the first scholar to be granted extended access by King to his private archives, a treasure trove of manuscripts that document the legendary writerʼs creative process most of them never before studied or published. The year she spent exploring King’s early drafts and hand-written revisions was guided by one question millions of Kingʼs enthralled and terrified readers (including her) have asked themselves: What makes Stephen King’s writing stick in our heads and haunt us long after we’ve closed the book?

Bicks focuses on five of his most iconic early works—The Shining, Carrie, Pet Sematary, Salemʼs Lot, and Night Shift—to reveal how he crafted his language, story lines, and characters to cast his enduring literary spells. While tracking King’s margin notes and editorial changes, she discovered scenes and alternative endings that never made it to print but that King is allowing her to publish now. The book also includes interviews Bicks had with King along the way that reveal new insights into his writing process and personal history.

Part literary master class, part biography, part memoir and investigation into our deepest anxieties, Monsters in the Archives—authorized by Stephen King himself—is unlike anything ever published about the master of horror. It chronicles what Bicks found when she set out to unearth how King crafted some of his scariest, most iconic moments. But it’s also a story about a grown-up English professor facing her childhood fears and getting to know the man whose monsters helped unleash them.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Timothy Egan reveals the life story of the man determined to preserve a people and culture in Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis.

Edward Curtis was charismatic, handsome, a passionate mountaineer, and a famous portrait photographer, the Annie Leibovitz of his time. He moved in rarefied circles, a friend to presidents, vaudeville stars, leading thinkers. But when he was thirty-two years old, in 1900, he gave it all up to pursue his Great Idea: to capture on film the original inhabitants before the old ways disappeared.

Curtis spent the next three decades documenting the stories and rituals of more than eighty North American tribes. It took tremendous perseverance,​ ten years alone to persuade the Hopi to allow him to observe their Snake Dance ceremony. And the undertaking changed him profoundly, from detached observer to outraged advocate. Curtis would amass more than 40,000 photographs and 10,000 audio recordings that would redefine the history of photography, and he is credited with making the first narrative documentary film. In the process, the charming rogue with the grade school education created the most definitive archive of the American Indian.

Whether you loved it, hated it, or haven’t finished it, we want to see you at our Adult Book Club that has been going strong for 40+ years at America’s Oldest Children’s Bookstore!

Timothy Egan is a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and the author of eight other books, most recently The Immortal Irishman, a New York Times bestseller. His book on the Dust Bowl, The Worst Hard Time, won a National Book Award for nonfiction. His account of photographer Edward Curtis, Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher, won the Carnegie Medal for nonfiction. He writes a biweekly opinion column for the New York Times.

Download a PDF of the schedule at website.

Where: Once Upon a Time Books

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website: Once Upon a Time Event Page

Mystery Book Club: Her Last Breath at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event

Our Mystery Book Club meets every other month, generally on the second Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm.

Participants will discuss Her Last Breath: A Novel by Taylor Adams.

Facilitated by Bobby McCue.

From the bestselling author of No Exit and The Last Word comes a heart-pounding thriller that plunges readers into the suffocating darkness of a cave—and the even darker secrets that lie within.

When Tess reluctantly joins her adventurous best friend Allie on a caving expedition, she expects to confront her claustrophobia—not a stranger who traps her in a fight for her life. A man who claims to be a fellow caver harasses them at the cave’s entrance. Confident, take-no-shit Allie insults the guy—and he retaliates. Soon, Tess is trapped inside a narrow crawl space hundreds of feet underground, fighting to stay alive.

Hours later, Tess emerges alive—but the nightmare is far from over.

As Tess recounts her harrowing story of survival, the detective interviewing her shares new and shocking secrets about Allie’s true past. Together, they begin to suspect the brutal attack wasn’t so random after all. In the hospital, as Tess pieces together the events with a detective, she learns shocking truths about Allie’s past that reframe everything. Was the attack truly random? Who was Allie beneath her dazzling interior? And most chilling of all—has Tess really escaped the danger, or is it still closing in?

Taylor Adams is the author of several acclaimed thrillers including The Last Word, Hairpin Bridge, and No Exit. No Exit has been published in 32 languages and is a Hulu Original film. Adams lives in Washington State.

RSVP for further information.

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2026-05-05/other-worlds-book-club

Book Event: Adeline Kon, with Sabrina Futch, & Just Between Us at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Adeline Kon, in conversation with Sabrina Kutch, will present and discuss Just Between Us, her debut graphic novel.

A book signing will follow the event, which is ticketed and includes the book.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

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

At Skylight: Annakeara Stinson, with Stephanie Danler, & Nerve Damage at Skylight – In-Person Event

Annakeara Stinson, in conversation with Stephanie Danler, will discuss Nerve Damage: A Novel.

A riotous revenge novel about a woman’s quest to escape her stalker ex-boyfriend—by stalking him herself.

Clarice’s breakup with P.T. began the usual way—she discovered he was cheating. Then came the constant texts, the nonstop emails from burner accounts, countless phone calls from dozens of different numbers. He showed up outside her apartment and her office. He sent her flowers and poems, and, perhaps most sinister of all, a link to the music video for Dido’s “White Flag.” Relief arrived only when Clarice finally obtained a restraining order and one-way ticket from New York to L.A.

Just as the restraining order expires—and three years to the day since she left him—Clarice spots a man who looks suspiciously like P.T. at a nightclub. Could it be him? Her best friend thinks she’s imagining things. Her therapist wants her to focus on healing her inner child. Her mother is busy planning her wedding to her fourth husband. A psychic medium can reveal only that P.T.’s energy is too volatile to locate on the spiritual plane. As painful memories resurface, Clarice is convinced her ex has returned to ruin her life. But with scant evidence to prove it, she takes increasingly unhinged steps to uncover the truth, ultimately leading to a place where paranoia and reality begin to blur.

A profane and poignant debut novel, Nerve Damage is a different kind of survivor narrative, about how far one woman will go to wrest back control of her life in a world determined to send her spiraling.

Annakeara Stinson is a writer whose work has appeared in Bustle, Brooklyn Magazine, The Inquisitive Eater, IndieWire, Paste, Marie Claire, and more. She has an M.F.A. in fiction from The New School and currently lives in L.A.

Stephanie Danler is a novelist, memoirist, and screenwriter. She is the author of Stray and the international bestseller Sweetbitter. She is the creator and executive producer of the Sweetbitter television series on Starz. Her neo-noir novel Smog is forthcoming from Scribner in early 2027. She’s based in Los Angeles.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Skylight

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-annakeara-stinson-presents-nerve-damage-w-stephanie-danler

Jennifer Lee & Leuyen Pham, with Gene Luen Yang, & As I Dream of You: A Graphic Novel at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Jennifer Lee & Leuyen Pham, in conversation with Gene Luen Yang, will discussAs I Dream of You: A Graphic Novel.

Franny and Sam are each other’s entire world. So what do you do when your world ends? Frozen’s Jennifer Lee and Lunar New Year Love Story’s LeUyen Pham deliver a tour de force young adult romance with a supernatural twist.

Falling in love is supposed to hurt. That’s what Franny and Sam, two cynical teens raised on tales of heartbreak and loss, have come to understand. But when they fall for each other, they find the reality of love is something else entirely—it’s electrifying, effortless, all-encompassing, and easy. Theirs is a love that can conquer anything…maybe even death.

After a shocking accident ends the couple’s life together before it can really begin, Sam finds himself drowning in thoughts of Franny. He simply can’t imagine a world without her in it. And soon, he doesn’t have to. In a series of vivid lucid dreams that blur the line between reality and fantasy, the two find each other again and vow to never separate. But as time goes on, cracks begin to form in their perfect world, and unsettling truths become harder and harder to ignore.

This heartrending yet life-affirming romance from Disney’s Jennifer Lee is paired with breathtaking, career-best art from LeUyen Pham. The result is a sublime YA graphic novel that’s poised to become a classic.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-05-12/jennifer-lee-leuyen-pham

The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rick Lupert and featured poet Chritopher Citro – Online Zoom Event

Cobalt Poets Reading & Open Mic and host Rick Lupert welcomes featured poet Christopher Citro.

Christopher Citro is the author of If We Had a Lemon We’d Throw It and Call That the Sun (Elixir Press, 2021), winner of the 2019 Antivenom Poetry Award, and The Maintenance of the Shimmy-Shammy (Steel Toe Books, 2015).

Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event

Date: Tuesday, the 12^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Address: Online event (see site)

Website: Cobalt Event Page

LiveTalks LA Presents: David Epstein, with Eric Barker, & Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better at Glorya Kauffman Performing Arts Center at Vista Del Mar – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

How do we do more with less? From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Range, why limits are the key to stimulating creativity, innovation, collaboration, and personal contentment.

We live in a world that gives us seemingly infinite choices and prizes freedom above all else. We have an unprecedented number of options regarding what to do, who to be, and how to spend our time. All that choice is wonderful; it is also overwhelming. The irony is that total freedom can be paralyzing, and unlimited resources don’t necessarily lead to the biggest breakthroughs. In fact, overvaluing complete freedom can be disastrous for everything from starting a company to harnessing creativity to finding personal satisfaction.

David Epstein argues that all of us—individuals, businesses, institutions, even societies—can benefit from narrowing our options. He dives into the science and practice of constraints, exploring exactly when and how guardrails can be beneficial, whether we’re working with limited resources or using self-imposed boundaries to tap unexpected wells of focus and innovation.

David Epstein is the author of the number one New York Times bestseller Range and the New York Times bestseller The Sports Gene. He has master’s degrees in environmental science and journalism and has worked as a senior writer for Sports Illustrated and as an investigative reporter for ProPublica.

Eric Barker is the author of The Wall Street Journal bestseller Barking Up the Wrong Tree, which has been translated into 19 languages and was even the subject of a question on “Jeopardy!” Over 500,000 people have subscribed to his newsletter. His work has been covered by The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Financial Times, and others. Eric has given talks at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Google, the United States Military Central Command (CENTCOM), the Olympic Training Center, and the National Security Agency. His latest bestseller, Plays Well with Others, was released by HarperCollins in May of 2022.

Where: Glorya Kaufman Performing Arts Center at Vista Del Mar

Date: Tuesday the 12^th

Time: 8 pm

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

$10 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 12^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: Instagram Page

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: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 9 am – 10 am

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

Website: Event Page

Mystery Book Club: How to Solve Your Own Murder at West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us for engaging discussions at our monthly Mystery Book Club meeting!

May 13: How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin.

Where: West Valley Regional Branch Library,LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 6^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am

Address: 19036 Vanowen Street, Reseda, CA 91335

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-20

Wilmington Book Club: No Ordinary Time at Wilmington Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us as we discuss No Ordinary Time by Doris Goodwin and receive your books for next month as well.

RSVP:

For questions, please contact klarson@lapl.org.

Where: Wilmington Branch Library,LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 11 am – 12 am

Address: 1300 N. Avalon Boulevard, Wilmington, CA 90744

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

One Book, One Coast Book Discussion: They Called Us Enemy at Wilmington Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us as we discuss They Called Us Enemy by George Takei.

New members are welcome.

Where: Westchester – Loyola Village Branch Library,LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 12 am

Address: 7114 W. Manchester Ave., Westchester, CA 90045

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/one-book-one-coast-book-discussion-0

Saved by a Story: Altadena Wildfire Survivor Writing Group at Altadena Community Center – In-Person Event

Join Saved by a Story’s free, prompt-driven community writing group for survivors of the Altadena wildfire.

Come together in community to write about the cherished places we have been, what we have lost (and found), and how we will chart a way forward. Ignite your creativity, share your stories, and find connection in this non-judgmental and creative environment.

Please arrive 5 or 10 minutes early to get settled, as we start the group promptly at 2 pm. Bring a notebook (nothing fancy) and a pen.

Saved by a Story is a non-profit that hosts free community writing workshops for under-resourced and under-served populations to empower voices and build connection.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Altadena Community Center

Date: Wednesday, the 13^th

Time: 2 pm – 3:30 pm

Address: 730 E. Altadena Dr., Altadena, CA 91001 

Website: https://altadenalibrary.libnet.info/event/16065521

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 13^th

Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm

Address: On-air Event

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

Good Trouble Reading Group: Stories by Wakako Yamauchi via Edendale Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event

We’ll be discussing a selection of short stories by Wakako Yamauchi from her collection Rosebud and Other Stories.

Secret desires, unfulfilled longing, and irrepressible humor flow through the stories of Wakako Yamauchi, writings that depict the lives of Nisei, second-generation Japanese Americans. Yamauchi and her family were sent to an internment camp during World War II, where she made lifelong friendships and wrote for the camp newspaper. Later she found acclaim as a playwright and fiction writer; her first story was featured in the pioneering 1974 anthology Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers. She wrote the stories in Rosebud later in life, bittersweet reflections on her family’s time spent in internment. Through these stories we enter a world of desert farmers, factory workers, gamblers, housewives, con artists, and dreamers. Elegantly simple in words and complex in resonance, these stories reveal hidden strength, resilience, and the persistence of hope.

Email eden@lapl.org for the reading selection, the Zoom link to attend and to get on the mailing list for our monthly sessions.

Where: Edendale Branch Library,LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 4 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Participants will discuss meeting for the following month’s meeting.

Please RSVP to amy@pagesabookstore.com.

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm

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

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2026-05-13/2nd-3rd-grade-book-club

Malibu Library Book Club: Piranesi at Malibu Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues. But as Piranesi explores his home, a terrible truth starts to unravel. For adults.

Where: Malibu Library,LACL

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 5 pm – 6:30 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16069347

One Book, One Coast: They Called Us Enemy by George Takei & Sashiko Embrodery at La Crescenta Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for the One Book Once Coast discussion of They Called Us Enemy by George Takei while learning to the simple yet stunning traditional Japanese embroidery technique Sashiko. For adults.

In celebration of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Where: La Crescenta Library,LACL

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16421682

Classics Book Club: The Princess and the Goblin at Alondra Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for our monthly The Classics Book Club. We will be discussing The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald. Copies of this title are available at the Circulation Desk. Registration required. For ages 18 and up.

Attendance is limited and advance registration is required. To sign up, see library staff, or register online at Visit.LACountyLibrary.org/Events and filter by location or event date.

Where: Alondra Library,LACL

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: 11949 Alondra Blvd, Norwalk, CA 90650

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16236312

Adult Book Club: We’ll Prescribe You a Cat at Littlerock Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us as we discuss We’ll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida. For adults.

Set in Kyoto, Japan, this charming and imaginative novel follows a mysterious clinic that offers an unusual treatment for life’s struggles: spending time with a cat. As each visitor forms a bond with their feline “prescription,” they begin to heal, reflect, and rediscover joy in unexpected ways. Blending gentle humor with heartfelt insight, the story explores connection, mindfulness, and the small moments that help us move forward.

Available at Littlerock Library or digitally with Libby or Hoopla on the LA County Library app or at lacountylibrary.org.

Where: Littlerock Library,LACL

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 35119 80th St. E., Littlerock, CA 93543

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2026-05-13/protect-your-energy-author-zabie-yamasaki

Spanish Book Club: Gabi, Fragmentos De Una Adolescente at Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss by Gabi, Fragmentos De Una Adolescente by Isabel Qintero.

Gabi Hernández está en su último año de la preparatoria. Para entretenerse, escribe todo lo que le pasa en su diario: las solicitudes a las universidades, el embarazo de Cindy, cuando Sebastián salió del clóset, los chicos guapos de su clase, la adicción de su padre a la metanfetamina, y toda la comida que se le antoja. Pero lo mejor de todo lo que escribe es la poesía que la ayuda a ser quien es.

24 de julio

Mi madre me llamó Gabriela en honor de mi abuela materna, quien, por cierto, no quiso conocerme cuando nací porque mi mamá no estaba casada, es decir, vivía en pecado. Mi mamá me contó muchas, muchas, muchas veces cómo mi abuela la golpeó cuando le confesó que estaba embarazada de mí. ¡Le dio una paliza! A los veinticinco años. Esa historia es la base de mi educación sexual. Cada vez que salgo con alguien, mi mamá dice, “Ojos abiertos, piernas cerradas”. Hasta ahí llega la conversación de las abejitas y las flores. Y por mí está bien, aun si no estoy enteramente de acuerdo con toda esa basura de “esperar hasta que te cases”. O sea, esto es Estados Unidos y es el siglo XXI, no México hace cien años. Pero, claro, no se lo puedo decir a mi mamá porque pensaría que soy mala. O peor: que intento ser blanca.

Isabel Quintero es una reconocida escritora del sur de California. Es hija de inmigrantes mexicanos. Además de Gabi, fragmentos de una adolescente, Quintero ha escrito una serie de libros para pequeños lectores titulada Ugly Cat and Pablo (Scholastic, Inc.), una biografía gráfica, Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide (Getty Publications, 2018), la cual recibió el Boston Globe Horn Book Award, y el libro infantil ilustrado My Papi Has a Motorcycle (Kokila, 2019). Isabel también escribe poesía y ensayos. Puedes encontrar algunos de sus textos en The Normal School, Huizache, The Acentos Review, As/Us Journal, The James Franco Review, y otras publicaciones.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://cellardoorbookstore.com/event/2026-05-13/spanish-book-club-gabi-fragmentos-de-una-adolescente

​RSVP at website.

Where: Di Piazza’s, Long Beach

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

Join a new book club meetup at Underdog Bookstore to discuss a new chapter of Love in a F*cked Up World by Dean Spade every second Wednesday, starting May 13th.

Support Underdog by purchasing your copy in-store or through Bookshop.org.

​RSVP at website.

Where: Underdog Bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.underdogbookstore.org/events/book-club-love-in-a-fcked-up-world

Poetry Club: Night Sky with Exit Wounds at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Join us for the newest book club at Village Well: The Poetry Club!

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

Our selection for May is Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong.

Ocean Vuong’s first full-length collection aims straight for the perennial “big”—and very human—subjects of romance, family, memory, grief, war, and melancholia. None of these he allows to overwhelm his spirit or his poems, which demonstrate, through breath and cadence and unrepentant.”

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: Event Page

Wiseburn Library Book Club: The Library Book at Wiseburn Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for a book discussion and light refreshments! This month, read The Library Book by Susan Orlean. Copies of the books are available at the library. For ages 18+.

Where: Wiseburn Library,LACL

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 6:45 pm – 7:45 pm

Address: 5335 W. 135th St., Hawthorne, CA 90250

Every Wednesday we have our weekly @shutupwrite at @bigbaralcove

Time to focus on your dreams!

Hosted by @literarypixie! We’re looking for a co-host. DM if interested!

Where: Big Bar, The Alcove

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 6:45 pm – 8:15 pm

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

Website: Instagram Page

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

RECESS Open Mic is at SIPA HQ on Wednesdays.

Come celebrate 8 years of RECESS Mic! There wit be a roster of special performances this year in #HistoricFilipinotown.

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 13^th

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

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

Website: Instagram Page

At Skylight: MJ Corey, with Evan Nicole Brown, & Deconstructing the Kardashians at Skylight – In-Person Event

 MJ Corey, with Evan Nicole Brown, will discuss Deconstructing the Kardashians.

MJ Corey, creator of the viral social media presence Kardashian Kolloquium, brings us not only the definitive chronicle of the family that’s captivated a nation, but, perhaps more important, the story of how media has transformed in the internet age and how it continues to transform us as individuals and as a culture at large. Part media theory, part cultural analysis, Dekonstructing the Kardashians interweaves history from the past fifty years of Western media—from the Old Hollywood studio system, to the advent of the twenty-four-hour news cycle, to tabloid culture and beyond—with analysis of the cultural influence Kim Kardashian wields over us all and the influences that have shaped her in kind. In so doing, Corey offers proof that the Kardashians are, in fact, the First Family of our image-saturated and deeply divided nation, while also demonstrating how they hold the keys to understanding the disjointed, self-referential reality of our current era.

MJ Corey is a Brooklyn-based writer and psychodynamic psychotherapist best known as Kardashian Kolloquium on TikTok and Instagram, where she applies media theory and postmodern frameworks to the Kardashian family. Her work has been featured in Refinery29, PAPER, Vogue.com, the Museum of Modern Art, and The New Yorker, among many other outlets.

Evan Nicole Brown is a Los Angeles-born writer, editor, and journalist who covers the arts and culture. Previously, she was The Hollywood Reporter’s culture writer, and a reporting fellow on the politics and styles desks at the New York Times. Presently, Evan is the managing editor of Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles and the founder of Group Chat, a conversation series and creative salon in L.A. Her writing can be found in Architectural Digest, The Cut, The FADER, L.A. Times Image, T Magazine, and elsewhere.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Skylight

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-mj-corey-presents-dekonstructing-kardashians-w-evan-nicole-brown

Book Event: Gabi Abrão & Practice in Apparition at Skylight – In-Person Event

Practices in Apparition is an offering to ghosts and Gods and the vessels in which they long to be seen. Through communion with both the digital and the natural at great extremes, romances both enduring and tragically brief, theory, and revelation; this collection of true stories leads readers on a hunt for the sacred, and often finds it.

Gabi Abrão is an artist, writer, and digital creator that was born and raised in West Los Angeles. She is also known under her Internet username, sighswoon. With over 130K followers online, her work has embraced the ephemerality of the human experience. Abrão has produced numerous how-to guides on topics such as How to Embrace Your Shape-Shifting and Ever-Changing Nature, Things You Can Pretend to Be When You Feel Uncentered, and How to Have a Positive Experience on Instagram. All of Abrão’s life’s work is devoted to developing a language with the invisible.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Stories Books & Café

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://storiesla.com/events/4969820260513

Jenna Ramirez, with Dahlia De La Vega, & Burnout Sumer at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Jenna Ramirez, in conversation with Dahlia De La Vega, will present and discuss Burnout Summer: A Novel.

Four years after graduation, life isn’t going the way Camille Luna expected. Her corporate career is soul-sucking, she’s in debt from student loans, and her breakup with her ex has created a serious rift between her college best friends. When her spiraling lands her in jail for the night, it’s Danny Brennan—the lovable burnout from their college clique—who bails her out and offers the perfect solution to her quarter-life crisis: a summer by the beach.

Cam is whisked away to Elswick, Rhode Island, where former slacker Danny has taken over his uncle’s restaurant and turned it into a seaside hotspot. But while Danny has grown into a devoted boss and dog dad, his carpe diem life philosophy is still as fiery as ever. The hazy summer days start to blur between shifts at the restaurant, dips in the ocean, and a reignited passion for writing, all alongside Danny who makes her laugh like nobody else. Cam can’t help but wonder—is it the salty waves that have her feeling so renewed, or is it the carefree friend she always overlooked? But summer can’t last forever, and Cam’s looming student debt reminds her at every turn that the frigid air of corporate office life is waiting.

As September approaches, Cam must decide between snuffing out the flames with Danny in order to keep her beloved friend group together and return to the corporate grind—or falling into his forbidden arms and setting her old life ablaze.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-05-13/jenna-ramirez

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 — Thea Monyee;
• 9:05 pm – 10:00 pm — Open mic.

Thea Monyee embodies, advocates for, and teaches humans how to embrace Joy & Change in their daily lives. From podcasting to diving, she uses diverse mediums to demonstrate the power of these two forces, and offers a hand to those willing to engage the journey! She is also the author of Murmurs of a MadWoman: An Unconventional Memoir, among other books.

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 13^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm

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

Website: Instagram Page

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: It’s Not the Way It Looked

Where: Art Parlor

Date: Wednesday the 13^th

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

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

Website: Instagram Page

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 13^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Address: Online event (see site)

Aman K. Batra (she/they) is a poet, educator, and community organizer from Artesia, CA. She writes from the intersections of her queerness and her Punjabi-American identity. Aman holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and a BA in English (Creative Writing) from UCLA. A powerhouse in the world of spoken word poetry, she has toured the nation, performing her work at over 100 venues across North America. As an educator, she has taught classes and workshops at some of the most accredited colleges and universities in the country.

Distinguished as a TEDx speaker and National Poetry Slam finalist, Aman has left indelible marks on stages across the country. As a vital part of the 2016 and 2017 DPL Slam Team, she helped shape the contemporary spoken word scene in Los Angeles, adding her unique voice to the chorus of today’s most influential poets. Her contributions to the world of poetry have found their way into The Los Angeles Times, LA County Arts Commission, and Fight Evil With Poetry Anthology. Her work has also graced popular platforms such as All Def Poetry and Button Poetry, and has been spotlighted by The Huffington Post and numerous other outlets.

Through her poetry, Aman K. Batra not only tells stories but also calls for justice and liberation, challenging her audience to perceive the world through a more empathetic and informed lens.

$5 cover fee, cash only

Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange

Date: Wednesday, the 13^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

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

Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/1849962052328445

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: Thursday the 14^th

Time: 9 am – 10 am

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

Website: Event Page

Lawndale Library Book Club: The Many Lives of Mama Love at Lawndale Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for a lively discussion of The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin. Books are available for check out at the library. For adults.

No one expects the police to knock on the door of the million-dollar two-story home of the perfect cul-de-sac housewife. But soccer mom Lara Love Hardin has been hiding a shady secret: she is funding her heroin addiction by stealing her neighbors’ credit cards. The Many Lives of Mama Love is a heartbreaking and tender journey from shame to redemption, despite a system that makes it almost impossible for us to move beyond the worst thing we have ever done.

Where: Lawndale Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 14^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: 14615 Burin Ave., Lawndale, CA 90260

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

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Thursday the 14^th

Time: 1 pm – 2:30 pm

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

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

Mystery Book Club: Heartwood at Culver City Julian Dixon, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss Heartwood by Amity Gaige. For adults.

Summary provided by the publisher:

In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping.

At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie’s disappearance may not be accidental.

Where: Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL

Date: Thursday the 14^th

Time: 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16076938

Festival of the Arts: Enrollment Day: Open Mic at El Camino College – In-Person Event

Join us for a free community event featuring student exhibitions, live performances, and activities.

Featuring:

Paola Gutierrez is author of a self-published bilingual children’s picture book, “I don’t like broccoli” “No me gusta el brócoli” (5-12) the next year in July 2023 she published her second children’s picture book also bilingual this time for younger audience (0-5). Her first poetry book is called LA NIÑA DE MIS OJOS a collection of poems in spanish; a love letter to her grandfather and to her inner child.

Juan Amador is a spoken-word poet and author of Pimping My Trauma with Riot of Roses Publishing House. His poems have been included in the literary journal Mobile Data Mag and others.

Peter Lechuga is a writer, poet, and musician who writes about nature, beauty, and social injustice. He rhymes under the pseudonym 4Tell as a member of the Pilgrimms art collective, which collaborates with artists to create visual art while making conscious, avant-garde hip-hop. Their music can be found wherever one streams.

Julia Gaytan N/A

Dulce Stein is an arts curator and instructor and student activist at El Camino College and elsewhere.

Branda Vaca is the author of the collection Riot of Roses and the founder of Riot of Roses Publishing.

Where: El Camino College Art Gallery

Date: Thursday the 14^th

Time: 4 pm – 7 pm

Address: 16007 Crenshaw Blvd., Torrance, CA 90506

Website: Instagram Page

Diverse Romance Book Club: The Isle in the Silver Sea at Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri.

From World Fantasy Award-winning author Tasha Suri comes The Isle in the Silver Sea, a heart-shattering standalone romantasy of sapphic longing, medieval folklore and a love that spans the centuries—in a stunning hardcover edition featuring designed endpapers, silver foiling, and a soft matte finish!

Tasha Suri is the World Fantasy Award winning author of The Isle in the Silver Sea, The Burning Kingdoms Trilogy, The Books of Ambha Duology, What Souls Are Made Of and Doctor Who: The Cradle. Once a librarian, she is now a part-time writing tutor and a full-time cat and rabbit wrangler. She lives with her family in a mildly haunted house in London. She can be found at tashasuri.com.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Thursday the 14^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://cellardoorbookstore.com/event/2026-05-14/diverse-romance-book-club-isle-silver-sea

Local Authors Meet-up at Underdog Bookstore – In-Person Event

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

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

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

RSVP at website.

Where: Underdog Bookstore

Date: Thursday the 14^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.underdogbookstore.org/events/local-authors-meetup-may

Author Event: Michael Cowan, with Meredith Louria, & John B. Peoples at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Join us for a conversation between Michael Cowan, debut author of the novel John B. Peoples, and veteran Santa Monica English teacher Meredith Louria. Michael and Meredith will discuss the roots, influences, and themes of Michael’s book, as well as the experience of writing fiction after a different kind of writing career. They will also explore the limitations of categorizing a book by genre, such as a thriller, contemporary fiction, etc. Q&A and book signing to follow.

Reserve your seat on EVENTBRITE!

Divorced and living in a converted garage, John Peoples thinks his difficulties are over when he wins half of a $40 million lottery jackpot. But his boss, Ed White, bought the winning ticket for the two of them, and only Ed’s name is on the ticket. When White makes clear his intention to cut John out of the winnings and then disappears with the entire jackpot, John embarks on an effort to find White and right the wrong.

During his quest, John suffers a debilitating spine injury and struggles to heal physically and emotionally. Yet he continues pursuing White from Los Angeles to Paris to Marseille. Along the way, he tries navigating the legal system, meets a woman he believes he can only dream about, and eventually engages the help of organized crime. Ultimately, he is faced with the question of how far he is willing to go to retrieve and protect what is his.

John B. Peoples is more than the study of a character out to correct an injustice. It takes us on a powerful journey while examining loss, personal growth, and the everyday challenges of life in America today.

A confirmed Francophile, Michael Cowan had a varied legal career including teaching writing at UCLA School of Law. He has also sung professionally and had two songs published. Father of three and grandfather of four, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their eccentric rescue dog Percie.

Meredith Louria earned her B.A. at Mount Holyoke College and her M.A. at the University of Virginia. Her first teaching job was in France. Returning to the United States, Meredith taught English at Marymount High School, Santa Monica High School and Santa Monica College and ran book clubs.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Thursday the 14^th

Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: Event Page

Jennifer Acker & Surrender at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Join author Jennifer Acker to discuss her book, Surrender.

A woman retreats from academic life in New York City to manage a family goat farm in New England, a novel that Richard Russo calls “splendid and provides what I crave from all stories: vividly drawn characters worth spending time with and a richly rendered place for them to inhabit.”

Lucy Richard has enjoyed a two-decade-long, successful career in public relations in New York City when she feels compelled to move back to rural Massachusetts to try to save her father’s farm. Returning to her childhood home at age 47 is hard enough, but the difficulties multiply once she’s settled in: her determination to raise dairy goats and make cheese is hampered at first by her total inexperience, and then by the sudden loss of her farming mentor. To make matters worse, her husband, Michael, who followed her to the farm reluctantly and who has made a disastrous financial decision, is suddenly in severely declining health.

Lucy finds solace in Sandy, a girlhood companion who quickly becomes more than a friend, but their new intimacy places the Richard farm in the crosshairs of Sandy’s employer, a solar energy company. How Lucy contends with the precariousness—at once financial, physical and emotional—of her new life, and with the competing passions and obligations that grow within and around her, is at the heart of this intimate drama of love and loss, of desire and friendship, and of the alluring possibilities of second acts.

Jennifer Acker is author of the debut novel The Limits of the World, a fiction honoree for the Massachusetts Book Award. Her memoir “Fatigue” is an Amazon bestseller, and her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Oprah Daily, the Washington Post, Literary Hub, n+1, and The Yale Review, among other places. Acker has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and is founder and editor in chief of The Common. At Amherst College, she directs the Literary Publishing Internship and LitFest. She lives in western Massachusetts and Portland, Maine.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Thursday the 14^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

Address: 8818 W. Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90069

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-05-14/jennifer-acker

May Trenches Full of Poets Reading Series: Gustavo Hernandez, Poeta Del Rio & Douglas Manuel at Page Against the Machine Bookstore – In-Person Event

Taking its name from a Clash lyric, Trenches Full of Poets is a monthly poetry series created, curated, and hosted by Los Angeles-based poets and editors, Nikolai Garcia and Mauricio Andres Moreno, with the goal of supporting a diverse array of published SoCal authors and the local independent bookstores that carry their works.

The event takes place on the second Thursday of every month and is always free and open to the public, no tickets or reservations required!

Where: Page Against the Machine

Date: Thursday the 14^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Join Rep Club for a discussion on The Comeback Era: From Limiting Beliefs To Living Without Limits with author Yasmine Cheyenne in conversation with NYT Bestselling Author, Founder & CEO of Inherit Learning Company. Nicole Walters.

In The Comeback Era, TODAY Show wellness expert Yasmine Cheyenne transforms that restless feeling into rocket fuel for authentic change. Through reconnecting with “Little You (the person you were before the world told you who to be} you’ll stop performing for everyone else and start living for yourself. This isn’t about burning your life down. It’s about remembering who you were before you learned to dim your light.

In the book, you’ll meet five people who also answered the call: The executive who realized her corner office was a cage. The mother who discovered “having it all together” meant losing herself completely. The achiever who checked every box except the one that mattered. Their stories, and Yasmine’s Seven C’s of Purpose framework, will show you how to:

Stop watching your life go by and start living it.

Yasmine Cheyenne is a self-healing expert, Health Coach, Wellness Workshop Leader, Author, and regular guest on The TODAY Show. Yasmine most recently signed on as the Wellness Coach for The TODAY Show’s digital platform and app, Start TODAY. Her workshops and retreats lead attendees through a variety of offerings, from gentle movement and yoga to meditation and breathwork that focus on physical and mental well-being. Yasmine has shared her teachings as a featured instructor on the Melissa Wood Health platform and as the Wellness Expert and Host of the PBS Wellness Series “Inside Out.”

She has been invited by Pepsi, GE, Well & Good, Cigna Health, Boys and Girls Club and more to speak and guide the companies internally to a life of peace and fulfillment. Yasmine shared her offerings on “How Boundaries Make Space for the Sweet Things in Life” as a Ted Talk speaker. She is also a military veteran and a mom of two daughters. Yasmine reminds us all to pause and find joy in the now.

Where: Rep Club

Date: Thursday the 14^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3054 S. Victoria Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90016

Website: Eventbrite Page

At Skylight: Sarah Wang, with Chris Kraus, & New Skin: A Novel at Skylight – In-Person Event

Sarah Wang, in conversation with Chris Kraus will discuss New Skin: A Novel.

A scalding, darkly humorous debut following an enmeshed mother-daughter duo, both best friends and enemies, and the plastic surgery addiction that warps their lives into a perilous spiral.

At twenty-six, Linli Feng is still trying to escape her mother Fanny’s orbit. But after three years of estrangement, just when Linli has been accepted into a prestigious graduate program, she is dragged back by Fanny’s latest medical catastrophe and forced to return home.

For decades, Fanny has been addicted to plastic surgery, getting bargain procedures in the basements of LA’s bootleg beauty industry. Now Fanny’s disfigured face is in dangerous revolt, infected and collapsing yet again from black-market injectables.

But even as Linli wades through the wreck of family finances and juggles her mother’s medical care, Fanny has another secret in store. Fanny has won a spot on America’s Beauty Extreme, a reality television competition in which botched plastic surgery addicts compete for reconstructive surgery as riveted audiences tune in. When Linli attempts to rescue Fanny from the sinister subculture that has already claimed her mother’s face, she must at last confront the corrosive reality of American success that is at the fraught heart of their relationship.

Sarah Wang has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, the London Review of Books, The Nation, The New Republic, Harper’s Bazaar, n+1, and BOMB, among other publications. Wang is a 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Fellow, a 2023 MacDowell Fellow, a 2020 Center for Fiction Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellow, and the winner of a Barbara Deming Award and a Nelson Algren prize for fiction. She teaches writing at Barnard College and lives in New York City.

Chris Kraus is a writer and critic. Her novels include Aliens & Anorexia, I Love Dick, Torpor and Summer of Hate and she has published three books of cultural criticism – Video Green: Los Angeles Art and the Triumph of Nothingness; Where Art Belongs, and Social Practices. I Love Dick was adapted for television and in 2017 her literary biography of Kathy Acker, After Kathy Acker, was published by Semiotext(e) and Penguin Press. Her new novel THE FOUR SPENT THE DAY TOGETHER will be published in 2025.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Skylight

Date: Thursday the 14^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-sarah-wang-presents-new-skin-w-chris-kraus

Book Tour: Reyna Grande, with Luis J. & Trini Rodriguez, & Migrant Heart at Tía Chucha’s – In-Person Event

Reyna Grande, in conversation with Lius J. and Trini Rodriguez, will discuss Migrant Heart: Essays About Things I Can’t Forget.

Save the Date!

This is a free event. No registration necessary. Migrant Heart is now available for pre order through Tia Chucha’s online bookstore. Find it through the link in our bio.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore

Date: Thursday the 14^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 12677 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar, CA 91342

Website: Instagram Page

Steven J. Ross & The Secret War Against Hate: American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Steven J. Ross will present and discuss his book The Secret War Against Hate: American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy.

From the author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Hitler in Los Angeles, the definitive story of the intrepid activists and spies who fought against a resurgent movement of hate in America.

Americans today like to believe that the end of World War II brought a new era of tolerance in the United States. But antisemitism and racism went up-not down-after the war’s end. Violence broke out in cities across the country, and the number of organized hate groups more than doubled from 1940 to 1946. In this shocking account of a resurgence of White Supremacy in America, celebrated historian Steven J. Ross reveals how four key leaders-Emory Burke, J. B. Stoner, James Madole, and George Lincoln Rockwell-worked together to “finish the job Hitler had begun,” launching deadly attacks on Jews and African Americans and building a network of terrorists across the U.S. In response to this “war of hate,” three men-Arnold Forster of the Anti—Defamation League, George Mintzer of the American Jewish Committee, and James Sheldon of the Non—Sectarian Anti—Nazi League-along with dozens of men and women, launched a multipronged effort: They infiltrated, monitored, and undermined these hate groups, putting their own safety on the line and scoring important victories that, today, have been all but forgotten.

Tracing the extraordinary work of these unsung heroes, The Secret War Against Hate provides a groundbreaking reconsideration of the legacy of the “Good War,” and essential reading on how America today can beat hate once again and build a just and united nation.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Thursday the 14^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-05-14/steven-j-ross

Book Event & Reading: Catherine Strisik, with Karen Kevorkian, & Goat, Goddess, Moon: Poetry at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Beyond Baroque welcomes poet Catherine Strisik, celebrating her book Goat, Goddess, Moon.

Beyond Baroque hosts a reading with poet Catherine Strisik celebrating her new collection Goat, Goddess, Moon (Holy Cow! Press, 2025), alongside Los Angeles poet Karen Kevorkian. Strisik’s poems move between the everyday and the mythic, drawing on Greek culture, family history, and ritual to explore memory, loss, and connection. Kevorkian is the author of Here in My Body it Feels Crowded (2025), joining for an evening of poetry in The Wanda Coleman Theater. Book signings & reception to follow.

Catherine Strisik is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Goat, Goddess, Moon (2025 Holy Cow! Press), and one chapbook. Her honors include a New Mexico/Arizona Book Award (The Mistress: 2016 3: A Taos Press); and finalist citations for the Philip Levine Book Award, Two Sylvia’s Press Book Award, Elixir Press Book Award, and New Mexico/Arizona Book Award. She is co-founder, publisher, and editor of Taos Journal of Poetry, former poet laureate of Taos, New Mexico (2020-21), as well as the recipient of a Taoseña Award as Woman of Impact for her many decades of literary contribution in northern N.M. Strisik is a Pushcart nominee with over 38 years of publications with poetry translated into Greek, Persian, and Bulgarian. She divides her time between Cape Ann and Taos, offering editorial consultations for essayists and poets and facilitates both private and small group poetry workshops. http://www.cathystrisik.com

Karen Kevorkian is an American poet based in Los Angeles. Her fourth poetry collection is Here in My Body it Feels Crowded, a chapbook (Walton Well Press, 2025). Her other poetry collections are Quivira (Three: A Taos Press, 2020), Lizard Dream (What Books Press, 2009), and White Stucco Black Wing (Red Hen Press, 2004). A native of San Antonio, Texas, Kevorkian attended the University of Texas in Austin before moving to San Francisco. She later earned an MFA at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. She has taught poetry and fiction writing workshops in the English department of the University of California Los Angeles. She is a founding member of the Glass Table Artists Collective and a former board of trustees member of Beyond Baroque literary arts organization. Her poems are published in the journals New American Review, Four Way Review, Furious Pure, Laurel Review, Verse Daily, Taos Journal of Poetry, Antioch Review, and elsewhere. Her fiction is published in Fiction International, Five Fingers Review, Furious Fictions, and Mississippi Review.

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

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Thursday, the 14^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm (Doors at 7 pm)

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

Website: Eventbrite Page

Book Event: Kimberlé Crenshaw & Backtalker: An American Memoir at Hammer Museum – In-Person Event

Kimberlé Crenshaw, a pioneering civil rights scholar who gave the world intersectionality and critical race theory, will read from her new memoir, Backtalker: An American Memoir.

The book uses the story of Crenshaw’s own life as a vehicle for something larger: making intersectionality and critical race theory, two of the most debated and misunderstood ideas in American public life, legible through lived experience. From a kindergarten school play to the Anita Hill hearings to the movement against police violence, Crenshaw shows how these frameworks aren’t abstractions—they are tools for seeing what others miss, and for naming what has too often gone unnamed.

As a UCLA Distinguished Professor of Law, Crenshaw’s lifelong refusal to stay quiet permanently reshaped the national conversation about race, gender, and justice. This reading will be followed by an onstage moderated conversation with Crenshaw delving deeper into the stories that have brought the importance of intersectionality and critical race theory to life.

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

Where: The Hammer Museum

Date: Thursday, the 14^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm (Doors at 7 pm)

Address: 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024

Website: https://hammer.ucla.edu/programs-events/2026/kimberle-crenshaws-backtalker-american-memoir

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: Friday the 15^th

Time: 9 am – 10 am

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

Website: Event Page

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 15^th

Time: 9:30 am

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website: Once Upon a Time Event Page

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

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

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

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Friday the 15^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: Event Page

Nonfiction Book Club: How to Hide an Empire at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr. Copies available at Customer Service. For adults.

Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Friday the 15^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

Address: 29901 Ladyface Ct, Agoura Hills, CA 91301

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16192432

Book Launch: Daniel Pope, with Ben Loory, & Go Help Yourself at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event

Join author Daniel Pop, in conversation with Ben Loory, to discuss his book Go Help Yourself.

Join us for an evening of discussion and celebration.

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Friday the 15^th

Time: 5:30 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-8d175f54-41b5-4f94-9e73-d945316b07eb

Mystery Book Club: The Frozen River at Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon, a gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history.

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.

Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.

Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.

Ariel Lawhon is an award-winning, critically acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author of historical fiction. Her books have been translated into over thirty languages and have been Good Morning America, LibraryReads, and One Book One County selections. She lives in the rolling hills outside Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and four sons. Ariel splits her time between the grocery store and the baseball field.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Friday the 15^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://cellardoorbookstore.com/event/2026-05-15/mystery-book-club-frozen-river

Special Author Event with Chloe Jory & Down with the Ship at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event

Welcome Chloe Jory on May 15th at 6:30 pm. Chloe will be discussing her new book; Down with the Ship, a sharp, steamy romantic comedy set on a super yacht in Fiji.

Stella Olsen doesn’t hate rich people. She swears. But the idea of spending two weeks trapped at sea with her snooty, judgmental in-laws sounds about as appealing as walking the plank. Even worse, she’s just been suspended from the PhD program she’s built her entire life around, and for reasons unknown, the family’s ultra-pretentious yacht captain seems intent on reminding her just how much she doesn’t belong.

Captain Caleb is everything Stella hates about the elite— arrogant, stuck-up, and, worst of all, infuriatingly gorgeous. But if she wants to fit in with her sister’s shiny new family, she’ll have to learn to play nice. After all, she doesn’t have to like him to be civil. Which she absolutely, definitely, does not.

Because falling for a crew member— one who sees right through her guarded façade— is a distraction she can’t afford. Especially when it could ruin her sister’s happily-ever-after— and Stella’s carefully laid plans to get her life back on track.

Chloe Jory is an author, conservation advocate and wellness entrepreneur who writes about love, magic, and the places that embody both. She currently resides in Southern California with her magnificent rescue chihuahua, Winnie. When she’s not writing, making plans for a regenerative farm collective, or pondering the secrets of the universe, she can often be found pretending to be useful on boats.

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Friday the 15^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2026-05-15/special-author-event-chloe-jory

Roland Betancourt, with Sara Velas, & Disneyland and the Rise of Automation at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Roland Betancourt. in conversation with Sara Velas, discusses and signs Disneyland and the Rise of Automation: How Technology Created the Happiest Place on Earth.

A history of the engineering marvels behind one of America’s most innovative and beloved entertainment experiences.

When Disneyland opened to the public in 1955, it demystified the hidden world of factory automation through its extraordinary new attractions. In this fascinating book, Roland Betancourt tells the story of how the visionary engineers and designers at Disney transformed the technologies of the postwar assembly line into an entertainment experience unlike anything the world had ever seen.

Disneyland and the Rise of Automation traces the origins and evolution of these technical innovations during the theme park’s first three decades in operation, exploring how engineers reimagined the systems and machines of industrial manufacturing and the military. The magnetic tape used to test ballistic missiles was repurposed to animate the talking macaws in the Enchanted Tiki Room. Programmable Logic Controllers, widely used on automotive assembly lines, brought to life the spectacular rides of the Matterhorn Bobsleds and Space Mountain. Betancourt shows how these and other attractions helped to allay fears about automation and job displacement in 1950s America. Along the way, he situates Disneyland’s remarkable creations within a broader history of the technologies that increasingly order and construct the world around us, from the Fordist factory to artificial intelligence.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Friday the 15^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-05-15/roland-betancourt

Book Launch: Asia Miller, with Zoe Gray, Justine King, Kyky Yang & Lindsay Cheng Dates a White Boy!!! at Heavy Manners Library – In-Person Event

Asia Miller, with readings by Zoe Gray, Justine King and Kyky Yang, will present her bookLindsay Cheng Dates a White Boy!!!

With a musical performance by Snake Pool.

NOTE: Tickets available at website.

Where: Heavy Manners Library

Date: Friday the 15^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://heavymannerslibrary.com/events/lindsey-cheng-dates-a-white-boy-book-launch-comic-reading-5-15

Book Event: Tiffany Cross, with Jemele Hill and Van Lathan, & Love, Me at Reparations Club – In-Person Event

Join Rep Club for a discussion on Love, Me by author Tiffany Cross in conversation with Jemele Hill, & Van Lathan.

Will we ever get back the love we give? That’s what millions of Black women are asking. Whether it’s the men in our lives, our experiences in our workplaces, or America itself, the country we built, we are fighting for the consideration, kindness, and respect we are due.

Black women are being silenced. Our history is being whitewashed and our contribution downplayed. Efforts persist to reduce our existence entirely. We are fighting for love, our lives, and livelihoods while a burning America continues to stand on our shoulders as it has throughout time.

In Love, Me, Cross brings to life the souls of Black women today. In the face of a failing democracy, dwindling opportunity, and elusive love, she tells the story of how we, women of accomplishment and endurance, relentlessly use our humanity to preserve ourselves, our culture, and civilization. Bold and provocative, Cross invites Black women to go from hopeless to hopeful as we fight to achieve our dreams, secure the love we deserve, and preserve the home we built. She argues that we must repair our personhood and society, and that starts with giving ourselves something to believe in.

Cross takes us on an intimate journey through the internal and external battles we face, illuminating community and critiquing the politics of being a Black woman today. With a blend of humor, pathos, and hard-hitting cultural analysis, Cross tackles issues like race, relationships, sex, family, economics, health, labor, and love. By bringing Black women to the forefront, she honors not just her story, but our story.

Tiffany D. Cross is a journalist, TV host, podcast host, author, and speaker. Tiffany previously hosted The Cross Connection on MSNBC where she averaged 4.6 million viewers a month. She is the current co-host of the NAACP Image Award-winning podcast, Native Land Pod. She attended Clark Atlanta University. She splits her time between Washington, DC and New York City.

Where: Rep Club

Date: Friday the 15^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3054 S. Victoria Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90016

Website: Eventbrite Page

Book Event: Mallory Kass, Kara McDowell, Roxie Noir, with Nora Kletter, & Save the Date at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Mallory Kass will present and discuss Save the Date, in conversation with guests Kara McDowell and Roxie Noir, with Nora Kletter.

A book signing will follow the event, which is ticketed and includes the book.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Friday the 15^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

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

At Skylight: Tracy Clark-Flory, with Koa Beck, & My Mother’s Daughter at Skylight – In-Person Event

Tracy Clark-Flory, in conversation with Koa Beck, will discuss My Mother’s Daughter.

From the journalist and author of Want Me (an NPR Best Book of the Year) comes a “tender, revelatory, and deeply moving” (Amanda Montei, Touched Out) story of family secrets, sisterhood, and the importance of untangling all that we inherit from our mothers.

Tracy Clark-Flory had a sister out there, somewhere. She knew that her mom, Deb, was sent to a home for unwed mothers as a pregnant teenager in the Sixties. After placing her baby for adoption, Deb was committed to a mental institution in her grief. Decades later, she had Tracy, who grew up as an only child longing for her sister. Now, in her thirties and a mother herself, Tracy takes a DNA test in hopes of finding her sister—and she does.

Newly connected with her half-sister Kathy, both daughters start asking questions about the past that their mom, who had died years earlier, could no longer answer. Tracy sets out to make sense of what happened back in 1965. She learns that their mom was pulled into a racist and sexist system designed to turn “bad girls” into proper women and wives. Tracy realizes that her own life has been profoundly shaped by her mom’s past, but she also uncovers a bigger story about patriarchal control, mother-daughter dynamics, and the way that shame keeps us divided—both within ourselves and from each other.

Blending powerful memoir with cultural criticism, My Mother’s Daughter is a moving, intimate tale of traumatic inheritance and intergenerational healing.

Tracy Clark-Flory is a journalist and author of My Mother’s Daughter and Want Me: A Sex Writer’s Journey into the Heart of Desire, which New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Traister calls “intimate, challenging, and so very smart.” She has written for Cosmopolitan, Elle, Esquire, Marie Claire, Salon, The Guardian, Jezebel, Wired, Women’s Health, and many others.

Koa Beck is the author of the acclaimed nonfiction book White Feminism: From the Suffragettes to Influencers and Who They Leave Behind, praised by feminist writers Gloria Steinem, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, Barbara Smith, and Rebecca Traister. She is a recipient of the Joan Shorenstein Fellowship at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Alan Jutzi Fellowship at The Huntington. She writes weekly at her newsletter, Valley Girl, an interrogation and cultural study of the “Valley Girl” stereotype across American culture, history, and lived experience. Koa lives in Los Angeles with her wife and daughter.

Where: Skylight

Date: Friday the 15^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-tracy-clark-flory-presents-my-mothers-daughter-w-koa-beck

Ticketed: Erin O’Brien & Dig In! Over 100 Easy, Delicious, and Stress-Free Recipes to Make on Repeat at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Erin O’Brien will present and discuss Dig In! Over 100 Easy, Delicious, and Stress-Free Recipes to Make on Repeat.

Over 100 flavorful and simple recipes for every occasion and craving from one of social media’s most beloved food content creators.

In her debut cookbook, content creator Erin O’Brien draws inspiration from three generations of women who taught her to create her own modern spin, with a stress-free approach to boldly flavored food. Erin has built a thriving community of over 1.5 million followers across platforms who turn to her for delicious, manageable, and creative meals, and are eagerly awaiting this book.

RSVP

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Friday the 15^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-05-15/erin-obrien

SWAAM Spoken Word Art & Music Event at Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center – In-Person Event

SWAAM Spoken Word Art & Music is offered every 1st & 3rd Friday of the month and hosted by Loranzo Frank.

Featured guests: TBA

Tickets at Eventbrite.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center

Date: Friday, the 15^th

Time: 8 pm – 12 am

Address: 4305 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008

Website: https://www.depoet.info/swaam

Santa Monica Reading Series: Third Fridays Open Mic with Elena Secota at Rapp Saloon, Santa Monica – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Second Fridays at Rapp Saloon has an Open Mic & Featured Readers every 3^rd Friday of the month.

Third Friday: Elena Secota, Host

This is a hybrid event, live in-person while offering a Zoom option for our performers and guests.

Our featured guest poets and artists this month TBA.

NOTE: See site or flyer for details.

Where: Rapp Saloon at HISUA

Date: Friday, the 15^th

Time: 8 pm – 11 pm

Address: 1436 2nd St., Santa Monica, CA 90402

Website: Instagram Page

Yoga Meets Book Club: A Court of Thornes and Roses at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event

Yoga Meets Book Club in this unique and immersive experience for readers bringing together beginner-friendly yoga and a book discussion led by Ashley Smaldino, Certified Yoga Therapist & South Bay yoga teacher.

This experience is intentionally themed around A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) by Sarah J. Maas. The yoga practice, sound bath meditation and even the playlist will be inspired by the story (note: there may be spoilers.)

Ticket includes:

30-minute beginner yoga practice with specially curated playlist

15-minute sound bath meditation

Book discussion and optional time for journaling

A copy of ACOTAR to be picked up in store in advance of the event to give you time to read.

Yoga mats will be provided. Please bring water, a beach towel/yoga blanket and sun protection since we will be outside.

Your ticket is non-refundable, unless the store has a wait list available.

Where: pages: a bookstore (in the Courtyard)

Date: Saturday the 16^th

Time: 8:30 am – 10 pm

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

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2026-05-16/yoga-meets-book-club-acotar-edition

Graphic Novel Book Club: Feeding Ghosts via Bel Canto Bookstore – Online Event

Participants will discuss Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls.

This story is about three generations of Chinese women, exploring love, grief, exile, and identity.

In her acclaimed graphic memoir debut, Tessa Hulls traces the reverberations of Chinese history across three generations of women in her family. Tessa’s grandmother, Sun Yi, was a Shanghai journalist swept up by the turmoil of the 1949 Communist victory. After fleeing to Hong Kong, she wrote a bestselling memoir about her persecution and survival—then promptly had a mental breakdown from which she never recovered.

Where: Bel Canto Books

Date: Saturday the 16^th

Time: 10 am – 11 pm

A story & music celebration for the launch of The Quiet Ocean by author, Charlotte Offsay, with special guest, Music with Kira, bringing the ocean music.

Preorder The Quiet Ocean, released on May 5, 2026, and receive a signed art print (while supplies last).

Order for pickup at the bookstore event or shipping anywhere in the U.S.

The Quiet Ocean: When a playful pufferfish’s actions cause a snowball effect disrupting the peace of the other sea creatures, it’s up to the ocean and a baby whale to restore quiet once more in this delightfully funny picture book companion to The Quiet Forest. Deep beneath the waves, a pufferfish putters alone. A playful puffer in a quiet, nothing-much-happening ocean. Until…one small pop! sets off a chain of outrageous events, causing the whole ocean to have a very frazzled day indeed! Can the sea creatures find a way to bring quiet back to their underwater home?

Charlotte Offsay was born in England, grew up in Boston, and now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. Through her work, Charlotte hopes to make children laugh, to inspire curiosity, and to create a magical world her readers can lose themselves in time and time again. She is the author of the picture books A Grandma’s Magic, Eight Sweet Nights – A Festival of Lights, Challah Day, Matzah Day, The Quiet Forest, How To Return A Monster, and The Big Beach Cleanup.

Where: Children’s Book World

Date: Saturday the 16^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am

Address: 10580 1/2 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064

Website: https://childrensbookworld.com/event/2026-05-16/quiet-ocean-book-launch-celebration-story-charlotte-offsay-music-kira-saturday-may

AAPI Joy: AAPI Voices, Then & Now at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us to celebrate the diversity of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities in Los Angeles at AAPI Joy, a free festival for all ages. Explore the city’s rich AAPI heritage and join us in forging a shared future of acceptance, cooperation, and inspiration with the greater Los Angeles community.

Visit, lapl.org/aapi-joy to view the full schedule.

Where: Central Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday the 16^th

Time: 11 am – 4 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/aapi-joy-aapi-voices-then-now

AAPI Author Visit: Rachel Abalos & Our Nipa Hut at Billie Jean King Main Library, Long Beach – In-Person Event

Celebrate the opening of our new Children’s Terrace at BJK Main with a special appearance by Filipino-American children’s author Rachell Abalos, writer of Our Nipa Hut: A Story in the Philippines. Families are invited to join us for the ribbon‑cutting ceremony, meet the author, and enjoy a joyful community gathering that highlights culture, storytelling, and the magic of reading. This event is free and open to all ages.

Where: Billie Jean King Mian Library, Long Beach

Date: Saturday the 16^th

Time: 11:15 am – 12 pm

Address: 200 W. Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90802

Website: https://www.longbeach.gov/library/events/billie-jean-king/

Book Club: They Called Us Enemy at Gardena Mayme Dear Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join our monthly book club for a lively discussion of our latest selection, They Called Us Enemy by George Takai. Copies of the book are available at the customer service desk and on Libby/Overdrive.

This is Takei’s firsthand account of his years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother’s hard choices, his father’s faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.

Where: Gardena Mayme Dear Library, LACL

Date: Saturday the 16^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: 1731 W Gardena Blvd, Gardena, CA 90247

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16106661

Poetry Summit – Vibrant Cycles at Malibu City Hall, LACL – In-Person Event

Join Malibu Poet Laureate Charlotte Ward for a special event at Malibu City Hall that brings together a dynamic and talented group of poets, musicians, and artists. Through spoken word, live music, and dance, they will explore the theme of Vibrant Cycles in a rich and engaging showcase.

There will be readings by local poets, including: Ann Buxie, fourth poet laureate of Malibu; Eileen Fiori; DeForeest Wright III; Pamela Goldsmith; Jolynn Regan; Tracy Katz; Debbie Pommer-Siegel; Ricardo Means Ybarra, first poet laureate of Malibu; Patricia Davis; and more. There will also be readings by selected student poets from local schools, taught and mentored by Jolynn Reagan, Ricardo Means Ybarra, and former poet laureate Nathan Hassall. RSVPs are not required for this free event. Light refreshments will be served following the event. All ages are welcome.

Where: Malibu City Hall

Date: Saturday the 16^th

Time: 12 pm – 2 pm

Address: 23825 Stuart Ranch Road, Malibu, CA 90265

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16416133

Sisters in Crime Los Angeles: Greed & Envy at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us as we welcome authors from Sisters in Crime Los Angeles, Kathryn Dodson and Georgia Jeffries, as they discuss their recent releases, followed by a Q&A with the audience. For ages 18 and up.

Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date: Saturday the 16^th

Time: 1 pm – 2:30 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16160200

Kinda Korean Author Talk with Joan Sung: Be the Change Event at Glendale Central Library – In-Person Event

Korean American author Joan Sung will be reading excerpts from her latest book Kinda Korean a courageous memoir of parental love and signing books at Glendale Central Library.

Join us as we discuss Sung’s memoir that delves into intergenerational trauma, inherited wounds, fetishization of Asian females, microaggressions and the struggles of growing up in an immigrant family. Kinda Korean does not shy away from racism and stereotypes that Asian Americans are often reduced to and provides one individual’s story in her path to healing, strength, and self-identity.

Book talk and author signing at Central Library- Auditorium (2nd floor)

Book copies are available with a library card: glac.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S185C2029241

Once Upon a Time Bookstore will be selling book copies onsite following the author talk.

Yellow Chair Collective will be present to share resources and connect folks to mental health resources. Asian Americans and the multicultural population struggle with unique pain points and struggles. Yellow Chair Collective is dedicated to bridging cultural identity as a huge part of everyone’s mental struggles.

Joan Sung is a national cultural competency conference presenter and consultant and has a BA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing, an MA in English, and a Doctorate in Education. Her articles regarding Asian American voices have been published in TinyBeans.com, Mochi Magazine, Memoir Magazine, and Writerly Magazine. She lives in the Seattle area with her husband, her son, and two dogs.

Where: Glendale Central Library

Date: Saturday the 16^th

Time: 1 pm – 2:30 pm

Address: 222 East Harvard St., Library Auditorium – 2nd Floor, Glendale, CA 91205

Website: https://shoponceuponatime.com/event/2026-05-16/kinda-korean-author-talk-joan-sung-hosted-glendale-library-arts-culture

Saturday Afternoon Poetry: FOUR FEATHERS PRESS ONLINE EDITION: FLOWER led by DKC via Zoom – Online Zoom Event

Join us for FOUR FEATHERS PRESS ONLINE EDITION: FLOWER.

Send up to three poems on the subject of or at least mentioning the word flower, totaling up to 150 lines in length, in the body of an email message or attached in a Word file to donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59 pm PST on May 15th. No PDF’s please. Color artwork is also desired. Please send in JPG form. No late submissions accepted. Poets and artists published in Four Feathers Press Online Edition: Flower will be published online and invited to read at the Saturday Afternoon Poetry Zoom meeting on Saturday, May 16th between 3 and 4:30 pm PST.

Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts and curates these events.

Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry, Online

Date: Saturday, the 16^th

Time: 3 pm – 4:30 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event

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

Before the Ban Book Club: Last Night at the Telegraph Club at Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Loh, a sweeping historical novel.

Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can’t remember exactly when the feeling took root—that desire to look, to move closer, to touch. Whenever it started growing, it definitely bloomed the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. Suddenly, everything seemed possible.

But America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.

Meticulously researched, emotionally stirring, and startlingly brave, Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a standout work of historical fiction that has taken the world by storm.

Winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature • A Michael L. Printz Honor Book • A We Need Diverse Books Walter Dean Myers Honor Book • A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist • A Kirkus Reviews Best Young Adult Book of the Century

Malinda Lo is the New York Times bestselling author of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, winner of the National Book Award, the Stonewall Book Award, and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, as well as Michael L. Printz and Walter Dean Myers honors. Her debut novel Ash, a Sapphic retelling of Cinderella, was a finalist for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award, the Andre Norton Award for YA Science Fiction and Fantasy, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and the Lambda Literary Award. Malinda’s short fiction and nonfiction has been published by The New York Times, NPR, Autostraddle, The Horn Book, and multiple anthologies. She lives in Massachusetts with her wife and their dog.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Saturday the 16^th

Time: 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm

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

Website: https://cellardoorbookstore.com/event/2026-05-16/ban-book-club-last-night-telegraph-club

Tom Perrotta & Ghost Town at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Tom Perrotta will discuss and sign Ghost Town: A Novel., about Jimmy Perrini’s fateful summer after his mother’s death. Fast cars, Ouija boards, and strong weed all feature in this powerful story about grief, prejudice, and adolescence.

Jimmy Perrini lives in 1970s suburban New Jersey, a few miles from Manhattan, but a world apart. At the end of eighth grade, after tragedy strikes, Jimmy finds himself lost in a fog of grief that alienates him from friends and family, drifting instead into troubling friendships with two older teenagers: one a notorious local burnout with a fast car, an endless supply of weed, and a shaky grasp of reality; the other a smart, eccentric girl, whom Jimmy finds himself drawn to as they become entranced by her Ouija board, which may just offer the only salve to their grief.

As a fateful public drama unfolds, Jimmy is torn between the occult beyond and the cold realities of the place he has called home. Narrated by a much older Jimmy, a literary-turned-commercial novelist, Ghost Town reveals how the past haunts the present, and the way our ghosts are always with us, even when we think we’ve left them behind.

Tom Perrotta is the author of eleven works of fiction, including Election and Little Children, both of which were made into Oscar-nominated films, and The Leftovers and Mrs. Fletcher, which were adapted into acclaimed HBO series. His new novel is Ghost Town.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Saturday, the 9^th

Time: 4 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-05-16/tom-perrotta

Open Mic Night: An Evening of Poetry & Storytelling at Point of View Gallery, Santa Ana – In-Person Event

Come join featured poets Gustavo Hernandez, Alene Terzian-Zeitounian, Kathleen Florence and Rich Ferguson.

Rich Ferguson is an L.A. poet and spoken-word performer who has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, Moby, and other esteemed poets and musicians. He is a featured performer in the film, What About Me? featuring Michael Stipe, Michael Franti, k.d. lang, and others. His poetry and award-winning spoken-word music videos have appeared in numerous anthologies and festivals. He is the author of two poetry collections 8th & Agony (Punk Hostage Press), and Everything is Radiant Between the Hates (Moon Tide Press) and the novel New Jersey Me (Rare Bird Books). Ferguson is the lead editor of Beat Not Beat (Moon Tide Press), an anthology of California poets moving the beat tradition. The poet was selected by the National Beat Poetry Foundation, Inc. (NBPF), to serve as California Beat Poet Laureate 2020 – 2022 and U.S. Beat Poet Laureate 2024 – 2025.

Sci-Fi & Fantasy Book Club: Tress of the Emerald Sea at Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss Tress of the Emerald Sea: A Cosmere Novel (Secret Projects) by Brandon Sanderson.

The only life Tress has known on her island home in an emerald-green ocean has been a simple one, with the simple pleasures of collecting cups brought by sailors from faraway lands and listening to stories told by her friend Charlie. But when his father takes him on a voyage to find a bride and disaster strikes, Tress must stow away on a ship and seek the Sorceress of the deadly Midnight Sea. Amid the spore oceans where pirates abound, can Tress leave her simple life behind and make her own place sailing a sea where a single drop of water can mean instant death?

Brandon Sanderson grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. He lives in Utah with his wife and children and teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University. His bestsellers have sold 50 million copies worldwide and include the Mistborn saga; the Stormlight Archive novels; and other novels, including Tress of the Emerald Sea, The Rithmatist, Steelheart, and Skyward. He won a Hugo Award for The Emperor’s Soul, a novella set in the world of his acclaimed first novel, Elantris. Additionally, he completed Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time®. Visit his website for behind-the-scenes information on all his books.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Saturday the 16^th

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

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

Hosted by the one and only @mr.chai_tea! Featuring Frankie Halbiger.

Frankie Halbiger (@frankieh456) came to acting later than most, after a diversion into business. After working on some films, and taking some acting and writing courses to round out his college pre-reqs, waking up his creativity for the first time, his friend in college asked if he’s like to travel to LA after graduation. He’s been here ever since.

$10/ all ages

Tickets at link in bio.

Where: Junior High

Date: Saturday the 16^th

Time: 5:30 pm (Doors at 5 pm)

Address: 603 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale, CA 91204

Website: Instagram Page

Poetry & Wine Tasting Fundraiser at Beyond Baroque – In-Person Event

Join us for a Poetry & Wine Tasting: A Fundraiser for Beyond Baroque, hosted by Luivette Resto.

Join us for a night of poetry, wine tasting, and fundraising for Beyond Baroque this spring season!

Join us in the Poets’ Garden at Beyond Baroque for an evening of wine paired with poems. We’ll sample Paso Robles and L.A. wines from guest winemakers Xochitl Wines, Paco Wines, Ulloa Cellars, and Eastside Luv. Each wine will be paired with our featured guest poets!

We hope to see you there!

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

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, Poets Garden

Date: Saturday, the 16^th

Time: 6 pm

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

Website: Eventbrite Page

33 1/3 Launch Party & Tribute Show: Anthony Gomez and Sofia Aguilar at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event

Join Anthony Gomez and Sofia Aguilar to celebrate the launch of SO TONIGHT THAT I MIGHT SEE, a 33 1/3 book on the history of Mazzy Star’s rise to fame amidst gentrification, rising violence, and a renaissance of Chicanx art in Los Angeles. We will be joined by an exciting lineup of musicians to perform a diverse range of takes on Mazzy Star’s music, celebrating the influence the band continues to have today.

Anthony Gomez III is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma. He is interested in nineteenth and twentieth century American literature and popular culture. In addition to his academic work, he is a published fiction author whose short stories have appeared in a number of literary journals, including Huizache, Shenandoah, New Letters, and Four Way Review. Read more at anthonygomeziii.com.

Sofía Aguilar (she/they) is a Chicana writer, editor, teaching artist, community organizer, and library worker based in Los Angeles, California. Her work has appeared in the L.A. Times, Latino Book Review, Acentos Review, and New Orleans Review, among other publications. She is the author of amor (Bottlecap Press) and Queer Latine Heroes: 25 Changemakers from Latin America and the U.S. from History and Today (Jessica Kingsley Publishers). Visit her at sofiaaguilar.com or on social media @sofiaxaguilar.

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Saturday, the 16^th

Time: 6 pm – 9 pm

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

Reserve your seat on EVENTBRITE!

Francesca is the author of over thirty books and editor of LIT ANGELS on Substack. She teaches creative writing at Antioch University, Los Angeles, UCLA Extension, privately, and every morning at the Village Well.

Hannah Olabosibe Eko is a Nigerian-American writer, multimedia storyteller, and book doula. A graduate of the US Merchant Marine Academy, she holds a Master’s Degree in Community and Economic Development from Penn State University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She is the founder of The Lit Club, a cannabis-inspired literary salon, creative community, and event series at the intersection of art, healing, and pleasure justice. Her writing has appeared in Buzzfeed, Bust magazine, Fractured Lit, Aster(ix), and elsewhere. She currently makes her home between Los Angeles, California and the universe.

Lezlie Williams Mitchell is a writer, editor, and actor whose work spans film, publishing, and brand storytelling. She has contributed to platforms such as Reebok, Livestrong, and Best of Vegan, and co-wrote Lovers, a stylized short film. During the pandemic, she published her debut children’s book, Some Of Us, All Of Us. Her writing appears in Energy Healing & Soul Medicine, Issue #8 of Lit Angels: Otherworlds, which features her short story “Mirror, Mirror,” Publish Her Anthology Dear Body VOL TWO, which includes her essay “Built Like A Goddess,” and At The Well, which features her essay “My First Elul.” When not writing, Lezlie is acting, parenting three magical little humans with her husband, or hanging out with their cat, Coco. Find her on Instagram @lovelezlie.

Laurel Ollstein is a playwright, writer, director and educator whose plays most recently have been produced at The Old Globe and TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. Other plays produced across the county include They Promised Her the Moon; Laughter, Hope and a Sock in the Eye; CHEESE; Esther’s Moustache; Unhappily Married in Valencia; OPA! the Musical; Dorothy Parker Is in the Bath; Blackwell’s Corner; The Dark Ages; Bias Cut; and Showing Our Age. She is also currently writing the second season of a podcast radio drama for New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco. Laurel has been commissioned to write new works by The Getty Villa, About…Productions, Virginia Avenue Project, New Jersey Repertory Company, Playwrights’ Arena, and Clark Library, and she has developed plays with TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, The Actors’ Gang, Cornerstone Theater Company, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Skylight Music Theatre, The Road Theatre Company, The Barrow Group, Miranda Theatre Company, and Playwrights’ Center among others. Several of her television and film projects have been optioned for development. Her awards include grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and California Arts Council, as well as Ovation, Garland, and LA Weekly Theater Awards. She wrote the first draft of They Promised Her the Moon at The University of Oklahoma, where she was a Faith Broome Playwright-in-Residence. They Promised Her the Moon is also recipient of a 2018 Social Impact Theatre Grant from The Sheri and Les Biller Family Foundation. Laurel also directs playwriting programs, provides writing and arts education in schools and for mature adults, and creates plays on social justice themes. She serves as adjunct faculty at California Institute of the Arts, UCLA, Loyola Marymount University, University of Redlands, and Otis College of Art and Design. Ollstein holds an MFA in playwriting from the School of Theater, Film and Television at UCLA.

Melissa Pleckham is a horror writer, musician, and actress whose work has been featured in publications including Francesca Lia Block’s Lit Angels Literary Journal, Pyre Magazine, Tales from the Moonlit Path, The Sirens Call eZine, Luna Luna, and Coffin Bell, among others. She has previously guest edited two issues of Lit Angels: “Halfway to Halloween” (Lit Angels #28, April 2025) and “All Hallows” (Lit Angels #34, October 2025). She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and a clowder of cats, two of whom are named after Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, and all of whom are perfect furry angels. Her debut novel, Lily of the Valley, is forthcoming. Learn more at http://www.melissapleckham.com or on Instagram @mpleckham.

Tracey K Zakai has an MFA in Creative Writing, from Antioch University LA. Her writing has been published in Aunt Chloe: A Journal of Artful Candor, Wussy Magazine, Reclamation Magazine, Lit Angels, and for Q Bee App. She leads writing groups and soundbaths at mental health wellness and drug/alcohol treatment centers. She is currently finishing her debut novel, Specimen.

Bornila Chatterjee’s TV credits include Wytches (writer) for Amazon Prime, Shantaram (writer) for Apple TV+ and Bombay Begums (writer/director) for Netflix. Her feature film The Hungry (writer/director) premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and she has sold a feature film screenplay to New Line Cinema. Bornila is a fellow of the Sundance Institute/Mumbai Mantra Screenwriters Lab and holds a BFA in Film and Television from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She loves bread and big cities.

Robin Carr was born in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in Lit Angels Literary Journal, Pandemic Diaries, Santa Monica Review, Brooklyn Review, Frank: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing, and the L.A. Weekly. Her book, 101 Girls, was published by Illuminati Press. She appears on the spoken-word album, Disclosure, and has performed at Beyond Baroque in L.A. and at the St. Mark’s Poetry Project in New York. Robin enjoys playing her out-of-tune piano. More of her writing can be found at: https://substack.com/@robincarr1

Jack Samm makes movies for money and writes books for sanity. He is a past attendee of the Norwescon Speculative Fiction Writing Workshop and is currently revising his first novel, Toppled Crowns.

Brittany Sipe is a therapist, vintage collector, and roller derby skater who lives in New England with her family. This is her first exploration of the world through written word.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Saturday the 16^th

Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: Event Page

Obsidian Tongues Open Mic: Donato Martinez with Ceasar K. Avelar at Lopez Urban Farm, Pomona – In-Person Event

Come Join us for an amazing book launch! As we celebrate the release of Ten Toes in the Earth, by Donato Martinez published by @elmartillopress. Bring your Poems, your music, and your art, and most importantly yourselves.

Donato Martinez was born in in small pueblo, Garcia de la Cadena, Zacatecas, Mexico and immigrated into the USA at six years old. He teaches English Composition, Literature, and Creative Writing at Santa Ana College. He has also taught classes in Chicano Studies. He has been a co-coordinator of the Puente Program for 24 years. In 2022, he was awarded the Creative Expression Faculty Award and the Transfer Advocate of the Year. In 2024-2025, he was recognized as the Distinguished Faculty of the Year, the highest honor bestowed on a faculty member. He is nominated for the Orange County Teacher of the Year, for the year 2026. He is also a cast member of Papah!, a YouTube show that features Mexican dads sharing their unique perspectives through candid conversations, food reviews, and reactions.

Martinez also hosts and curates many artistic events that feature poetry and music.

Sign-ups at 7 pm.

Where: Lopez Urban Farm

Date: Saturday, the 16^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm

Address: 1034 W. Mission Blvd., Pomona, CA 90711 

Website: Instagram Page

Nature Journaling in Griffith Park, Off-site with LAPL – In-Person Event

Join the Library and L.A. Recreation & Parks for a relaxed morning of nature journaling. We will begin with a guided nature walk, followed by time to reflect and capture observations through writing, coloring, or poetry. No experience is necessary.

Note: Participants will receive a LAPL Neighborhood Science Observation notebook, but should bring their own writing and drawing supplies.

RSVP:

Please register through Eventbrite to reserve a spot.

Where: Griffith Park Visitor Center, Off-site with LAPL

Date: Sunday the 17^th

Time: 9 am – 12 pm

Address: 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90027

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/nature-journaling-griffith-park

Banned Books Reading Group at West Los Angeles Regional Branch Library LAPL – In-Person Event

The banned books reading group reads and discusses materials that have been historically challenged or are on the American Library Association’s “Banned and Challenged Books” lists. For current titles, please contact the West LA library at westla@lapl.org or 310-575-8323.

Where: West Los Angeles Regional Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Sunday the 17^th

Time: 2 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/banned-books-reading-group-1

Amy Ephron & Unseasonably Cold at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Amy Ephron will present and discuss her book Unseasonably Cold: A Novel.

“A spare historical thriller about trusting the wrong people. Our verdict: Get it ” -Kirkus Reviews

A socialite living in late-1930s New York City disappears without a trace in Unseasonably Cold, Amy Ephron’s elegant, melancholy noir of secrets, misapprehensions, and deceptions.

Replete with beautifully observed period detail and sharply drawn characters, Unseasonably Cold is classic storytelling, a mystery crafted with an artist’s eye.

Rendered in Ephron’s lovely, austere literary prose, it is utterly worthy of the era it depicts, when the polite mask of high society’s mannered calm disguised the turbulence just beneath; a mirror for the terrible events swirling in Europe at the lead-up to the Second World War.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Sunday the 17^th

Time: 2 pm – 4 pm

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

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-05-17/amy-ephron

New Middle Grade Book Club: The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person MG Event

Join us for the newest Village Well book club, the Middle Grade Book Club! RSVP for your spot below!

Once a month, we’ll meet and explore some of the best middle-grade books out there. We’ll chat about the characters, themes, favorite scenes, and whatever else happens to interest us about the chosen title. There’s never pressure to participate in the discussion. All meetings conclude with either a writing activity or craft. We’d like you to read the book before the meeting, but if you didn’t get to finish, please still come by (although we’re gonna spoil the ending!).

Our selection for May is The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart.

Discussion Leader: Local author Heather Alexander has written more than 90 books for kids. Her nonfiction has been recognized as Amazon Best Book, National Science Teachers Association Best STEM Book, Parent’s Choice Award selections and the winner of the June Franklin Naylor Award. She was the editor of R.L. Stine’s mega-popular, bestselling Goosebumps and Fear Street series, among many, many others.

#1 New York Times-bestselling author Dan Gemeinhart pens an unforgettable tale about family, friendship, and the meaning of home.

Five years. That’s how long Coyote and her dad, Rodeo, have lived on the road in an old school bus, criss-crossing the nation. It’s also how long ago Coyote lost her mom and two sisters in a car crash.

Coyote hasn’t been home in all that time, but when she learns that the park in her old neighborhood is being demolished—the very same park where she, her mom, and her sisters buried a treasured memory box—she devises an elaborate plan to get her dad to drive 3,600 miles back to Washington state in four days…without him realizing it.

Along the way, they’ll pick up a strange crew of misfit travelers. Lester has a lady love to meet. Salvador and his mom are looking to start over. Val needs a safe place to be herself. And then there’s Gladys.

Over the course of thousands of miles, Coyote will learn that going home can sometimes be the hardest journey of all, but that with friends by her side, she just might be able to turn her “once upon a time” into a “happily ever after.”

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Sunday the 17^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

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

Website: Event Page

Bucket List Book Club: Washington Square via Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside – Online Zoom Event

Join us to discuss Washington Square by Henry James.

A masterful novel of New York society by a champion of literary realism

When timid and plain Catherine Sloper acquires a dashing and determined suitor, her father, convinced that the young man is nothing more than a fortune-hunter, decides to put a stop to their romance. Torn between her desire to win her father’s love and approval and her passion for the first man who has ever declared his love for her, Catherine faces an agonizing dilemma, and becomes all too aware of the restrictions that others seek to place on her freedom. James’s masterly novel deftly interweaves the public and private faces of nineteenth-century New York society; it is also a deeply moving study of innocence destroyed.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Philip Horne has spent a decade looking at the thousands of James’s letters in archives in the United States and Europe. A Reader in English Literature at University College, London, he is the author of Henry James and Revision and the editor of the Penguin Classics edition of James’s The Tragic Muse.

Henry James (1843-1916), born in New York City, was the son of noted religious philosopher Henry James, Sr., and brother of eminent psychologist and philosopher William James. He spent his early life in America and studied in Geneva, London, and Paris during his adolescence to gain the worldly experience so prized by his father. He lived in Newport, went briefly to Harvard Law School, and in 1864 began to contribute both criticism and tales to magazines.

In 1869, and then in 1872-74, he paid visits to Europe and began his first novel, Roderick Hudson. Late in 1875 he settled in Paris, where he met Turgenev, Flaubert, and Zola, and wrote The American (1877). In December 1876 he moved to London, where two years later he achieved international fame with Daisy Miller. Other famous works include Washington Square (1880), The Portrait of a Lady (1881), The Princess Casamassima (1886), The Aspern Papers (1888), The Turn of the Screw (1898), and three large novels of the new century, The Wings of the Dove (1902), The Ambassadors (1903) and The Golden Bowl (1904). In 1905 he revisited the United States and wrote The American Scene (1907).

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Sunday the 17^th

Time: 3 pm – 4 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event 

One poem per person (yours or one of your favorites!).

In-person signups open 1/2 hour prior to the event (limited to 21).

No sign-ups after the event begins.

Ticketed: Pay what you want at website,

Where: Heavy Manners Library

Date: Sunday the 17^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://heavymannerslibrary.com/events/lps-hml-poetry-open-mic-5-17

May 2026 Focus on Craft Book Club: Brides for Beau McBride at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Developmental Editor and Teacher Jeanne De Vita leads our Focus on Craft Book Club. The meeting is the 3rd Sunday of the month at 7:15 pm.

Participants will discuss Brides for Beau Mc Bride by Amy Barry.

No membership is necessary, but RSVP is required.

Where: The Ripped Bodice

Date: Sunday the 17^th

Time: 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm

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

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