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

June’s selection: Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall.

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago.

Where: Manhattan Beach Library, LACL

Date: Monday the 8^th

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16088561

YA for Adults Book Club: For She Is Wrath at Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss For She Is Wrath by Emily Varga.

The instant-bestselling romantic fantasy retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo, where a girl seeks revenge against those who betrayed her, including the boy she loved, is now in paperback!

Three hundred and sixty-four days.

Framed for a crime she didn’t commit, Dania counts down her days in prison until she can exact revenge on Mazin, the boy responsible for her downfall, the boy she once loved—and still can’t forget. When she discovers a fellow prisoner may have the key to exacting that vengeance—a stolen djinn treasure—they execute a daring escape together and search for the hidden treasure.

Armed with dark magic and a new identity, Dania enacts a plan to bring down those who betrayed her and her family, even though Mazin stands in her way. But seeking revenge becomes a complicated game of cat and mouse, especially when an undeniable fire still burns between them, and the power to destroy her enemies has a price. As Dania falls deeper into her web of traps and lies, she risks losing her humanity to her fight for vengeance—and her heart to the only boy she’s ever loved.

Emily Varga is an internationally bestselling YA author of FOR SHE IS WRATH and the forthcoming THE RIVER SHE BECAME duology. FOR SHE IS WRATH was an instant indie bestseller, a Goodreads Choice nominee and was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. She has lived in England, Scotland and Australia but now calls western Canada her home where she lives with her family and their menagerie of pets. When not writing, Emily works as a family lawyer, where she learned more about storytelling than she ever expected.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Monday the 8^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://cellardoorbookstore.com/event/2026-06-08/ya-adults-book-club-she-wrath

Brooke Averick, with Matt King, & Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It at Diesel, Off-site at Historic Women’s Club – In-Person Event

Join us to welcome Brooke Averick, in conversation with Matt King, to discuss Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It.

Meet Phoebe Berman: despite being a hopeless romantic, she’s about to be a thirty-year-old virgin. With one month before her milestone birthday, she’s determined to finally lose it…if her own anxiety doesn’t slow her down. The can’t-miss debut novel from podcaster and comedian Brooke Averick.

Is it possible to find true love when going on a date makes you want to throw up?

Phoebe Berman fears the one thing she wants the most: love. Thanks to an extremely unfortunate first kiss attempt, crippling intimacy anxiety has plagued her since she was a teen.

Phoebe has so much going for her: a dream teaching job, a supportive and hilarious group of best friends, and all the romance novels a girl could want at her fingertips—but she can’t help but beat herself up over the one thing she can’t quite seem to figure out. Determined to change this, she drafts up the ultimate “Guide to Losing My Virginity” checklist with the hope of finally getting laid.

Suddenly, she goes from a relatively boring (basically non-existent) dating life to juggling three romantic prospects at once. There’s the gorgeous new fourth grade teacher at her school, a former high school classmate that resurfaces through Words with Friends, and there will always be her roommate, who might just be the best friends-to-lovers situation of her dreams.

Where: Diesel, Off-site at Historic Women’s Club

Date: Monday the 8^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: 1210 4^th St., Santa Monica, CA 90401 

Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2026-06-08/brooke-averick-phoebe-bermans-gonna-lose-it

Baking Club: Morning Baker at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss Morning Baker by Roxanna Juliapat.

Bake your favorite recipe from the book and show up ready to eat and share!

To join the Baking Club mailing list, please email events@villagewell.com.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Monday the 8^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: Event Page

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 8^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92501

Website: Facebook Page

Rick Tulsky, with Steve Lopez, & Injustice Town at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Rick Tulsky, in conversation with Steve Lopez, will discuss Injustice Town: A Corrupt City, A Wrongly Convicted Man, and A Struggle for Freedom.

The powerful story of a falsely imprisoned man and a sweeping indictment of a city and the criminal justice system by a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist.

When the bodies of two Black men were found sitting with a crackpipe in a parked car in a rundown section of town in 1994, it seemed just another day in Kansas City, Kansas. The swift arrest and conviction of a seventeen-year-old Black kid from a broken home raised no eyebrows either.

And yet, thirty years later, Lamonte McIntyre would prove to be the David that took down the Goliath of corruption that had long controlled the city’s power structure and enveloped the city’s justice system.

But the effort to prove Lamonte’s innocence opened a Pandora’s box. Before it was over, the fight to win Lamonte’s exoneration exposed corrupt police and prosecutors, incompetent court-appointed defense lawyers, and a judge who violated ethical standards by his secret past relationship with the prosecutor, whom he favored in his rulings.

Injustice Town follows Lamonte’s case from its harrowing beginning to its triumphant end and beyond, including the legal tsunami that came in its wake, that engulfed prosecutors, attorneys, and judges. Most shockingly, the lead cop on the case was indicted by the Department of Justice for the widespread abuses he had committed years earlier on women in the Black community of Kansas City Kansas. Abuses documented by Lamonte’s team. The criminal case ended, literally, with a bang, denying Lamonte and those whom the detective hurt, the chance for them to seek their own justice.

Rick Tulsky, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, goes beyond the courthouse, exposing the ways in which corruption flourished for decades in an erstwhile quiet Midwest town, a town once dedicated to justice and equality.

A lawyer by training as well as a reporter, Tulsky’s narrative not only brings Lamonte’s story to vivid life, it will empower cities, counties, states, and everyday citizens with a blueprint for equal justice. At a time when the federal government is abdicating its responsibility for demanding fairness and justice, it is up to states, local governments, and we the people look to ways they can act. Vivid and unforgettable, Injustice Town tells the story of one man and shows us a vision of what a better future could be.

L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez is a four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary and is the New York Times best-selling author of The Soloist, which won the PEN USA award for literary non-fiction and was the basis of a Dreamworks movie by the same name. He is the author of five books and has won the Mike Royko, H.L. Mencken, Ernie Pyle and Damon Runyon awards for column writing, and has been a newspaper and magazine journalist for 51 years.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Monday the 8^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm (Doors at 6 pm)

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

RSVP link in bio.

Time: 7 pm

Address: 2413 Hyperion, Los Angeles, CA 90027

Website: Instagram Page

At Skylight: Joseph Osmundson, with Tommy Pico and Keiko Lane, & Spawning Season at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Joseph Osmundson, in conversation with Tommy Pico and Keiko Lane, will discuss Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood.

From the author of National Book Critics Circle Award and Lambda Literary Award finalist VIROLOGY comes an intimate chronicle of queer family-making.

Since grade school, Joseph Osmundson dreamed of being pregnant. As he grew into the queer scientist he is today, the economic precarity of academia and the warming planet led to his decision not to reproduce. That is, until a lesbian couple he had known since college came to him with a proposition: would Joe be a bio-dad and would he co-parent alongside them?

Soon everything was falling into place. But when the two partners communicated their need for a child to reflect their own racial backgrounds, Joe’s whiteness exposed fault lines in their parenting journey. Spawning Season is a genre-bending memoir that treats the scientific as integral to the personal and that builds an entire species of the grief we carry in our bodies. In exploratory prose that builds on the work of Donna Haraway and José Esteban Muñoz, Osmundson considers the ethics of child-rearing in the 21st century, the brutal wonder of caregiving, and the joys and intricacies of building family beyond biology.

Joseph Osmundson is a professor of microbiology at New York University and the author of the National Book Critics Circle and Lambda Literary Award Finalist Virology. His work has been published in leading biological journals including Cell and PNAS and in the New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. He lives and works in New York City.

Tommy “Teebs” Pico is a poet, artist, and tv writer. He is author of the books IRL, Nature Poem, Junk, Feed, and has written on the shows Reservation Dogs, Resident Alien and Crystal Lake. Originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation, he now lives in Los Angeles where he makes abstract portraits with various kinds of wax, acrylics, watercolors, food coloring, and India ink.

Keiko Lane is an Okinawan American writer, teacher, and psychotherapist. Her current projects explore the affective legacy of her family’s history of wartime incarceration and forced family separation. Her first book, Blood Loss: A Love Story of AIDS, Activism, and Art, a memoir about queer family and devotion in ACT UP and Queer Nation Los Angeles, was published by Duke University Press in 2024.

Where: Skylight

Date: Monday the 8^th

Time: 7 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-joseph-osmundson-presents-spawning-season-w-tommy-pico-and-keiko-lane

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 8^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)

Website: Free Workshop Page

Virtual Book Club: The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – Online Event

Join us for the weekly Virtual Book Club. In June we will be discussing The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club by Martha Hall Kelly.

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

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

Week 1: June 9: Chapters 1 – 9 — Pages 3 – 78

Week 2: June 16: Chapters 10 – 23 — Pages 79 – 156

Week 3: June 23: Chapters 24 – 36 — Pages 157 – 228

Week 4: June 30: Chapters 37 – 49 — Pages 229 to the end of the book

Please note there will not be a meeting on Tuesday, June 2.

Two sisters living on Martha’s Vineyard during World War II find hope in the power of storytelling when they start a wartime book club for women-a spectacular novel inspired by true events from the New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls.

Where: La Crescenta Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: Online Event (see site) 

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16603402

A Special Author Luncheon with Lisa See & Daughters of the Sun and Moon at pages Off-site at Neptunian Women’s Club – In-Person Event

We are thrilled to be hosting a very special publication day luncheon event for Lisa See celebrating the launch of her new novel Daughters of the Sun and Moon on Tuesday, June 9th at 11am. New York Times bestselling author Lisa See’s new novel draws on the vibrancy and turmoil of post-Civil War Los Angeles to tell the story of three Chinese women who managed to survive and, eventually, thrive, despite all odds. The luncheon will be held at the Neptunian Woman’s Club located at 920 Highland Ave. Manhattan Beach, just two blocks east of the bookstore.

{pages}, Lisa See and the Neptunian Woman’s Club have a long and beloved relationship; we couldn’t be happier to be hosting this event. We know Lisa’s fans in the South Bay and throughout Southern California are many and devoted. We expect this event to sell out so we encourage you to purchase your tickets as soon as possible.

Each $75 ticket includes lunch and a signed copy of the book.

This event is currently sold out – please call the store at 310-318-0900 to join the waitlist.

RSVP for tickets & further information.

Where: pages Off-site at Neptunian Women’s Club

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 11 am – 12:30 pm

Address: 920 Highland Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2026-06-09/special-author-luncheon-lisa-see

Agoura Readers Book Club: Theo of Golden at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss Theo of Golden by Allen Levi For adults.

Copies available at Customer Service.

Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16192909

Book Club: Station Eleven at Montebello Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for a discussion of the novel, Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel. Copies are available for checkout at the Circulation Desk. For Adults

Where: Montebello Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 3 pm – 4 pm

Address: 1550 W. Beverly Blvd, Montebello, CA 90640

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16579616

Zibby’s Book Club: Zibby and Sarah Damoff & The Burning Side via Zibby’s Bookshop – Online Event

Join us for Zibby’s Book Club Zoom meeting with author Sarah Damoff, author of The Burning Side! Come with questions that you can ask Sarah directly. Zibby Owens will moderate the 30-minute Q&A session! You don’t have to be a “member” of the book club to join. Anyone is welcome! Order from Zibby’s Bookshop at website..

RSVP at website link.

Where: Zibby’s

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 4 pm – 5 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: Eventbrite Page

Brain Trust Creative Writing Workshop via The Poetry Lab – Online Zoom Event

Join us for Touch Grass: Grounding the Creative Body, a workshop led by Lori Walker, the host of the Poetry Lab podcast.

This class will be recorded. The replay will be available for 30 days after the live session.

This class is held in a live Zoom session, it is not a webinar. You will be able to use the chat, be seen on camera, raise your hand and ask questions to the instructor in real time.

This class is interactive, and student participation is encouraged.

RSVP for sliding scale enrollment.

Where: The Poetry Lab

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event

Website: https://www.thepoetrylab.com/braintrust

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 9^th

Time: 6 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

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

Author Event: Jill Wintersteen, with Kelly Gores, & Spirit Daughter at Zibby’s Bookshop – In-Person Event

Join us to hear Jill Wintersteen, in conversation with Kelly Gores, discuss Spirit Daughter.

RSVP at website link.

Where: Zibby’s

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 1113 Montana Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90401

Website: Eventbrite Page

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

Please join the World Cultures Reading Circle in the Community Room to discuss An American Marriage by Tayari Jones. New members are welcome.

Where: Westchester – Loyola Village Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 9^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-discussion-2

Silver Lake Book Club: Why Didn’t You Tell Me? at Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join the Silver Lake Book Club as we discuss Why Didn’t You Tell Me? by Carmen Rita Wong. Copies are available at the Reference Desk. Light refreshments are served.

Where: Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 6:30 pm

Address: 2411 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90439

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/silver-lake-book-club-4

Silver Lake Book Club: Why Didn’t You Tell Me? at Leland R. Weaver Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join the Silver Lake Book Club as we discuss Why Didn’t You Tell Me? by Carmen Rita Wong.

Copies are available at the Reference Desk. Light refreshments are served. The eBook and audiobook are available through Libby. The eBook is also available via Hoopla. New members are always welcome!

Where: Leland R. Weaver Library, LACL

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16062411

Laura Lekkos, with Alexandra Brown Chang, & All the Little Ways at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event

Join us to welcome Laura Lekkos, in conversation with Alexandra Brown Chang, to discuss All the Little Ways: A Novel.

This debut novel is about two expecting mothers navigating motherhood, family life, and female friendship, whose bond is threatened by a shocking revelation.

Victoria and Liz barely breathe the same air, but they collide headfirst when they meet in a group for expectant mothers and find common ground against all odds.

Victoria, forty-three, is confident, poised, and powerful, on the fast track to major career success in finance. Having kids is not in the plan. She had avoided love for decades—and hadn’t been too keen on female friendship either—when she fell for Ace, a dashing man twenty years her senior.

Liz, thirty-two, lives a fairly unstable life, trying to make her situationship work and navigate a job on a vile reality dating show. She’s desperately wanted to experience motherhood for her entire life, but anxiety and insecurity have landed her with a laundry list of failed romances. It’s an accident when she gets pregnant with her emotionally elusive boyfriend Preston’s baby just shy of a year into dating.

When Liz and Victoria meet in a parenting class, they both feel out of place amongst these pregnant women who seem to have it all figured out. They roll their eyes at the classic sign-off peppering the new mommy group chat: TIA (thanks in advance!). Alienated from these other women and due within a week of each other, Victoria and Liz’s bond becomes a lifeline as they navigate their pregnancies and relationships. They grapple with impending motherhood together and lean on each other to navigate important decisions about family, career, and love. It’s the first successful female friendship in Victoria’s life and the first time Liz has felt so connected to an older, wiser confidante. Maybe, just maybe, it will all be okay.

Laura Lekkos is a screenwriter and book lover. She is especially passionate about female-focused stories and has written screenplays for various studios including 20th Century, Netflix, Amazon MGM, Sony, Universal, and Lionsgate. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2026-06-09/laura-lekkos-all-little-ways

Activism Book Club: Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here 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 June, we’ll explore Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here by Jonathan Blitzer.

An epic, heartbreaking, and deeply reported history of the disastrous humanitarian crisis at the southern border told through the lives of the migrants forced to risk everything and the policymakers who determine their fate, by New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer.

Everyone who makes the journey faces an impossible choice. Hundreds of thousands of people who arrive every year at the US-Mexico border travel far from their homes. For years, the majority came from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, but many more have begun their journey much farther away. Some flee persecution, others crime or hunger. They may have already been deported, but the United States remains their only hope for safety and prosperity. They will take their chances.

As Jonathan Blitzer dramatizes with forensic, unprecedented reporting, this crisis is the result of decades of misguided policy and sweeping corruption. Brilliantly weaving the stories of Central Americans whose lives have been devastated by chronic political conflict and violence with those of American activists, government officials, and the politicians responsible for the country’s tragically tangled immigration policy, Blitzer reveals the full, layered picture of this vast and unremitting conflict.

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here tells the epic story of the people whose lives ebb and flow across the border, delving into the heart of American life itself. This vital and remarkable story has shaped the nation’s turbulent politics and culture in countless ways—and will almost certainly determine its future.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Tuesday the 9^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 9^th

Time: 7 pm – 10 pm

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

Website: https://www.instagram.com

A Conversation with Désirée Zamorano, Tisha Reichle-Aguilera & Lisa Alvarez at Bel Canto Books, KUBO LB – In-Person Event

Bel Canto Books is delighted to host a conversation with Désirée Zamorano (Amarisa’s Cooking Pot), Tisha Reichle-Aguilera (Breaking Pattern), and Lisa Alvarez (Some Final Beauty and Other Stories).

Désirée Zamorano is the author of the groundbreaking, family saga, historical fiction novel Dispossessed. Her highly acclaimed literary novel, The Amado Women was re-released September 2025. An award-winning and Pushcart prize nominee short story writer, her work is an exploration of where cultures collide and connect. Her work can be found in Alta, The Kenyon Review Online and Akashic’s South Central Noir. An avid reader, cook and traveler, in addition to writing she also teaches at CSU Long Beach.

Chicana Feminist and former Rodeo Queen, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera writes so the desert landscape of her childhood can be heard as loudly as the urban chaos of her adulthood. A former high school teacher, she earned an MFA at Antioch University Los Angeles and a PhD at USC. She is the author of a YA novel, Breaking Pattern (Inlandia Books), which received Honorable Mention for First Book of Fiction in English from the International Latino Book Awards, and a prose chapbook, Stories All Our Own (Bottlecap Press). She is a Macondista and works for literary equity through Women Who Submit.

Lisa Alvarez’s debut collection, Some Final Beauty and other Stories, was published in 2025 by the University of Nevada Press, as part of their New Oeste imprint which promotes Latinx writers of the American West. Her work has appeared in About Place Journal, Air/Light, Citric Acid, Huizache, Santa Monica Review and elsewhere, including anthologies such as Women in a Golden State: California Poets at 60 and Beyond. Devoted to promoting the writing of California, she has edited three anthologies including Orange County: A Literary Field Guide.

Where: Bel Canto Books, KUBO LB

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 3976 Atlantic Ave, Long Beach, CA 90807

Website: Withfriends Page

Wayne Feinstein & Turning: A Novel at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Wayne Feinstein will discuss his novel, Turning.

Can a lifetime of wrongs be made right?

By almost every measure, Joe Fredericks, a real estate developer in New York City, is at the top. Successful, wealthy, and now the biggest developer in New York, he should feel as strong and solid as a Manhattan skyscraper. But one phone call from his ex-wife and that facade shatters. His college-age son, Steven, is dying of cancer and has forbidden Joe from visiting him in his final days.

Steven’s death exposes how hollow Joe’s life really is. While trying to move forward, Joe can’t help but reflect on his past as waves of memories resurface. As he relives the pivotal moments of his life, can Joe determine what went wrong in time to save his strained relationship with his daughter and Steven’s twin, Laura? And can looking at his life in a new light help Joe find his future path in his career and in love?

Born in Albany, New York, Wayne Feinstein grew up in Columbus, Ohio. A graduate of Colgate University, he earned graduate degrees in Jewish Studies at Hebrew Union College and certificates in social work and financial planning at UC Berkeley. He enjoyed two successful careers, first in Jewish community service, including eighteen years as the CEO of three large Jewish Federations in Detroit, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. In 2001, Wayne changed careers and became a financial adviser for Capital Group Companies in the Private Wealth group, from which he retired after nearly nineteen years at the end of 2019. In retirement, Wayne has dedicated himself to writing a blog on Substack, “I Try to Get This Off My Chest,” and writing fiction, and has written three novels and a growing number of short stories. Turning is his first novel to be published.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-06-09/wayne-feinstein

Ticketed Event: James Ellroy & Red Sheet at Chevalier’s – In-Person Event

James Ellroy will present, discuss, and sign Red Sheet.

Join us for a special event with James Ellroy and his latest novel, Red Sheet, a gritty, fast-paced historical crime thriller set in 1962 Los Angeles during the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

It’s late October 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis has just concluded. The Russkies blinked and pulled their ICBMs out of Cuba. Attorney General Robert Kennedy fears reprisals from seething commies. He orders a red probe and puts the LAPD on the job.

Freddy Otash is injudiciously named the lead investigating officer. He’s a stone-cold criminal with police sanction and a harrowing dope habit. He homes in on a red-front trade union. There’s a murder on Halloween night. It may link to ex-VP and current gubernatorial candidate Richard Nixon and two commie snuffs from eight years back. Freddy’s overworked and overamped. He’s running the probe, and Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman—Tricky Dick Nixon’s head goons—have hired him to keep Nixon away from the smear-minded press.

L.A. is coming unglued. Ex-cop/lawyer Tom Bradley is running for a city council seat and pushing the Rumford Fair Housing Act. Playboy kingpin Hugh Hefner is along for the ride, out to exploit racial tension and peddle untold copies of his smut rag.

Red Sheet is James Ellroy’s most crazed kamikaze run and a daring, subversive work of fiction.

RSVP: Ticket & signed book: $35

Where: Chevalier’s

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2026-06-09/james-ellroy-ticketed-event

Adult Book Club: Project Hail Mary at Once Upon a Time Bookstore – In-Person & Online Zoom Hybrid ybrisEvent

Our Adult Book Club meets monthly, generally on the second Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm in a hybrid format.

Join our discussion of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary.

Now a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, with a screenplay by Drew Goddard.

A lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this “propulsive” (Entertainment Weekly), cinematic thriller full of suspense, humor, and fascinating science—from the author of The Martian.

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!

RSVP for further information.

Where: Once Upon a Time

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website: Once Upon A Time Event Page

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

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

We read new release mysteries. Book selection is done by email voting prior to each meeting so that the following month’s book will be available at the preceding month’s meeting.

Facilitated by Bobby Mccue

RSVP for further information.

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2026-06-09/mystery-book-club

At Skylight: Caroline Kepnes & You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel at Skylight – In-Person Event

Caroline Kepnes will discuss You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel.

How did Joe Goldberg become Joe Goldberg? What led to his first love…first obsession…first kill? Find out in the highly anticipated prequel to New York Times bestselling author Caroline Kepnes’s hit You series, which inspired the blockbuster Netflix show.

Joe Goldberg is ready for his life to start. He’s seventeen years old, working in Mr. Mooney’s bookshop, falling in love with every girl on the subway all while wondering who will be the one. He knows what he needs: A woman who will force him to get his GED, go to night school, and make something of himself. But who would ever fall in love with him?

Then he spots it: MISSED CONNECTION, NYC Bookstore Babe.

Someone is looking for Joe. And that someone is Vail Gunderson, a production assistant with a passion for rom-coms. The only catch: she’s twenty-four, which means that Joe has no choice but to lie about his age, and, naturally, nearly everything else in his life. Joe thinks he’s found true love, but when Vail needs more convincing that Joe is her happily ever after, he’s determined to convince her, no matter what it takes.

With her incisive and darkly comedic prose, Caroline Kepnes captures Joe poised on the edge of manhood, entering the vicious, dog-eat-dog New York dating scene for the very first time, and buffeted by forces that will determine what kind of man he will become—and how he will write his own twisted love story.

Caroline Kepnes is the author of You, Hidden Bodies, You Love Me, For You and Only You, and Providence. Her work has been translated into a multitude of languages and inspired a television series adaptation of You, currently on Netflix. Kepnes graduated from Brown University and worked as a pop culture journalist for Entertainment Weekly and a TV writer for 7th Heaven and The Secret Life of the American Teenager. She grew up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and now lives in Los Angeles.

Where: Skylight

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-caroline-kepnes-presents-you-first-joe-goldberg-prequel

Ticketed: Lisa See & Daughters of the Sun and Moon at Vroman’s Off-site at Pasadena Presbyterian Church – In-Person Event

Beloved New York Times bestselling author Lisa See draws on the vibrancy and turmoil of post-Civil War Los Angeles to tell the story of three Chinese women who managed to survive and, eventually, thrive, despite all odds.

In 1870, three Chinese women arrive in the small, dusty, and violent pueblo of Los Angeles. Dove, the bound-footed daughter of an imperial scholar, is entrancing and innocent. These characteristics should bring her great rewards, beginning with her arranged marriage to a much older merchant. Petal, the big-footed daughter of peasants, has grown up hungry and with dirt between her toes. In a moment of desperation, Petal’s father sells her to buy money for rice seed, and she is loaded onto a ship to the Gold Mountain—America—where she is once again sold. Moon is married to a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. She is educated, speaks fluent English, and has been endowed with a face of great beauty, yet her failed footbinding as a child has left her with a limp that lessens her value in the eyes of many.

Each woman has her own desires. Dove wants to love and be loved, Petal desires freedom, and Moon seeks justice. Together they face a larger society that wishes them not one ounce of goodwill. Anti-Chinese sentiment is strong in Los Angeles, and this eventually leads to the Night of Horrors during which all three women are challenged in ways they could not have imagined. Brought together by hardship and heartbreak, they must use their bravery, endurance, and ability to “eat bitterness” to discover their voices, find freedom, and connect through solace and friendship. Together they are daughters of the sun and moon.

This is a ticketed event at Pasadena Presbyterian Church. Tickets include one entry and one copy of Daughters of the Sun & Moon to be handed out at check-in.

RSVP at website link.

Where: Vroman’s Off-site at Pasadean Presbyterian Church

Date: Tuesday the 9^th

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm

Address: 585 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-06-09/ticketed-lisa-see

Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rick Lupert and featured poet Sneha Madhavan-Reese – Online Zoom Event

Cobalt Poets Reading & Open Mic presents host Rick Lupert and welcomes guest poet Sneha Madhavan-Reese.

Sneha Madhavan-Reese’s award-winning poetry has been widely published in literary magazines in North America and Australia. She earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from MIT in 2000, and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan in 2002.

Sneha Madhavan-Reese is the author of two poetry collections, Observing the Moon and Elementary Particles. Elementary Particles was a finalist for the Ottawa Book Award and was longlisted for the Raymond Souster Award.

Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event

Date: Tuesday, the 9^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Address: Online event (see site)

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

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

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

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

Masks are encouraged.

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

Date: Tuesday, the 9^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

Mystery Book Club: Razorblade Tears at West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

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

June 10: Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby

Where: West Valley Regional Branch Library,LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 10:30 am – 12 pm

Address: 19036 Vanowen Street, Reseda, CA 91335

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

Afternoon Book Club: The Antidote at Westlake Village Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for a rousing discussion of this month’s book. Be prepared to share opinions, insights, and observations with a fun group of fellow readers. Copies of the book can be checked-out at the library. For adults

We will be discussing The Antidote by Karen Russell, an epic historical novel set in the Dust Bowl in Nebraska and reckons with the past and how it impacts the present.

Where: Westlake Village Library,LACL

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 12 pm – 1 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16566516

Loyola Village Book Club: Trust at Westchester Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join the Loyola Village Book Club in the Community Room to discuss Trust by Hernán Díaz. New members are welcome.

Where: Westchester Branch Library,LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 12 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/loyola-village-book-club-discussion-3

Mystery Book Club: The Night She Disappeared at Sylmar Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us on the second Wednesday of every month for our Mystery Book Club!

Upcoming meeting:

June 10 – The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell.

Where: Sylmar Branch Library,LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

Address:14561 Polk Street, Sylmar, CA 91342

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-17

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 10^th

Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm

Address: On-air Event

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

2^nd & 3^rd Grade Book Club at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Kids Event

Meets monthly, generally on the second Wednesday of each month at 4:30 pm.

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

Please RSVP to amy@pagesabookstore.com.

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm

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

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2026-06-10/2nd-3rd-grade-book-club

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

We will be discussing Percival Everett’s James, adramatic, humorous and profound reimagining of ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ told from the perspective of the enslaved Jim. For adults.

Where: Malibu Library,LACL

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 5 pm – 6:30 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16566527

Sci-Fi Fantasy Book Club: The Book of Two Ways at Quartz Hill Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult. For adults.

After a near-death experience, Dawn Edelstein realizes she longs for a life she chose not to live. We see two perspectives: one in which Dawn returns to her settled life in Boston, and another in which she tracks down an old flame in Egypt and completes her abandoned work on an ancient map of the afterlife. What does living a full life truly mean?

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

Where: Quartz Hill Library,LACL

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16308814

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

Join us for a book discussion. The book for June is The Librarians by Sherry Thomas.

Books are available for checkout at the library. Some titles are available as free downloadable eBooks or digital audiobooks from LA County Library at lacountylibrary.org.

All interested persons are welcome and invited to attend. For adults.

Where: Artesia Library,LACL

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 18801 Elaine Ave., Artesia, CA 90701

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16568987

Spanish Book Club: Más allá/Afterlife at Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside – In-Person & Online Hybrid via Zoom Event

Join us to read and discuss Más allá/Afterlife by Julia Alvarez.

The first adult novel in almost fifteen years by the internationally bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents.

Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, it asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including—maybe especially—members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost?

Julia Alvarez llegó a Estados Unidos desde la Republica Dominicana en 1960, a la edad de diez años. Es autora de seis novelas, tres libros de no ficción, tres colecciones de poesía, y once libros para niños y jóvenes lectores. Ha enseñado y sido mentora de otros escritores en diferentes escuelas y comunidades en los Estados Unidos, y fue escritora residente en Middlebury College. Su trabajo ha sido reconocido internacionalmente. Alvarez fue nombrada Mujer del Año por Latina Magazine, y ha sido galardonada con el Latina Leader Award in Literature por el Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute y el Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature, además de recibir la Medalla Nacional de las Artes de manos del presidente Barack Obama en 2013, en reconocimiento a su extraordinaria capacidad para contar historias.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://cellardoorbookstore.com/event/2026-06-10/spanish-book-club-mas-alla

Book Club: Squeeze Me via Pacoima Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

This is an online mostly fiction book club. We select book titles throughout the year. For the June meeting we will discuss Squeeze Me by Carl Hiaasen.

RSVP:

Email pcoima@lapl.org to receive the Zoom link.

Where: Pacoima Branch Library,LAPL

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-11

Lisa See & Daughters of the Sun and Moon at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event

Join us to welcome Lisa See, to discuss her new novel Daughters of the Sun and Moon.

Beloved New York Times bestselling author Lisa See draws on the vibrancy and turmoil of post-Civil WarLos Angeles to tell the story of three Chinese women who managed to survive and, eventually, thrive, despite all odds.

In 1870, three Chinese women arrive in the small, dusty, and violent pueblo of Los Angeles. Dove, the bound-footed daughter of an imperial scholar, is entrancing and innocent. These characteristics should bring her great rewards, beginning with her arranged marriage to a much older merchant. Petal, the big-footed daughter of peasants, has grown up hungry and with dirt between her toes. In a moment of desperation, Petal’s father sells her to buy money for rice seed, and she is loaded onto a ship to the Gold Mountain—America—where she is once again sold. Moon is married to a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine. She is educated, speaks fluent English, and has been endowed with a face of great beauty, yet her failed footbinding as a child has left her with a limp that lessens her value in the eyes of many.

Each woman has her own desires. Dove wants to love and be loved, Petal desires freedom, and Moon seeks justice. Together they face a larger society that wishes them not one ounce of goodwill. Anti-Chinese sentiment is strong in Los Angeles, and this eventually leads to the Night of Horrors during which all three women are challenged in ways they could not have imagined. Brought together by hardship and heartbreak, they must use their bravery, endurance, and ability to “eat bitterness” to discover their voices, find freedom, and connect through solace and friendship. Together they are daughters of the sun and moon.

Lisa See is the New York Times bestselling author of Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, The Island of Sea Women, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, Shanghai Girls, China Dolls, and Dreams of Joy, which debuted at #1. She is also the author of On Gold Mountain, which tells the story of her Chinese American family’s settlement in Los Angeles. See was the recipient of the Golden Spike Award from the Chinese Historical Association of Southern California and the Historymaker’s Award from the Chinese American Museum. She was also named National Woman of the Year by the Organization of Chinese American Women.

Where: Diesel, A Bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2026-06-10/lisa-see-daughters-sun-and-moon

Book Club: Love In A F*cked Up World at Underdog Bookstore – In-Person Event

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.

Wednesday, June 10th – Chapter Two:

“Stuck on Autopilot: Swinging between Numbness and Temporary Highs”

Where: Underdog Bookstore

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

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

Refugee Crisis Book Talk: Jeanne Carstensen, with Michael Scott Moore, & A Greek Tragedy at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Join award-winning journalist Jeanne Carstensen for a conversation with journalist and author Michael Scott Moore to celebrate the paperback release of A Greek Tragedy.

Tickets are available for $10 or with the purchase of a copy of A Greek Tragedy, which you can find by clicking link at site.

The book reconstructs a single, devastating day during the 2015 refugee crisis, when an overcrowded boat capsized off the coast of the Greek island of Lesvos, claiming hundreds of lives. Drawing on nearly a decade of reporting, Carstensen brings together the voices of survivors, rescuers, and witnesses to illuminate both the human cost of forced migration and the extraordinary acts of courage that followed.

In conversation with Moore—author of The Desert and the Sea, a memoir of his own harrowing experience of captivity by pirates and survival at sea—the two writers will explore what it means to document trauma at sea, the ethics of bearing witness, and how storytelling shapes our understanding of crisis.

Timely and deeply moving, this event offers a powerful look at survival, responsibility, and our shared humanity in an era of global displacement.

Jeanne Carstensen is an award-winning journalist and author of A Greek Tragedy (Simon & Schuster), a finalist for the 2026 PEN/Galbraith Award, the LA Times Book Prize, and the California Book Award. Her work appears in The New York Times, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, among others. She has received support from the Pulitzer Center and fellowships from Columbia University’s National Arts Journalism Program and Mesa Refuge. She lives in San Francisco.

Michael Scott Moore is a journalist and novelist, author of the comic novel Too Much of Nothing and the nonfiction book Sweetness and Blood, named one of The Economist’s best books of 2010. He writes about immigration for Bloomberg Businessweek and previously worked as an editor at Spiegel Online. Kidnapped by Somali pirates in 2012 and held for 32 months, he later recounted the experience in his international bestselling memoir The Desert and the Sea.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Wednesday the 3^rd

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

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 10^th

Time: 6:45 pm – 8:15 pm

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

Website: Instagram Page

Charolotte Druckman and Mayukh Sen Present: Love in the Afternoon and Evening: Essays and Conversations on Soap at Book Soup – In-Person YA Event

Part cultural analysis, part backstage tour, Love in the Afternoon, and Evening isa love letter to a misunderstood, often-dismissed American genre. Critics, friends, and soap obsessives Charlotte Druckman and Mayukh Sen invite readers into a conversation that ranges from topics both serious (race, reproductive rights, queerness) and fun (fashion! long-lost daughters! evil twins!). Like any great soap, they structure their essays for surprise and emotional payoff, including interviews with divas Susan Lucci (All My Children) and Erika Slezak (One Life to Live), an exploration of the greatest soap satire ever made, deeper cuts like a Who’s Who of the best-of-the-best actors on Falcon Crest, and much more. Together, these thoughtful essays get to the bottom of what makes a soap, tracing a throughline to reality TV and the shows that continue to hook us day and night with drama and emotion. Love in the Afternoon, and Evening will make you want to bust out your shoulder pads and binge your favorite show all over again.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-06-10/charlotte-druckman-mayukh-sen

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 10^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

Cloistered in a dreary Bogotá apartment, Ignacio’s light has dimmed, leaving his teenage daughter, Valentina, to raise herself in the wake of her mother Alma’s death. Lonely and love-starved, Valentina aches to discover the details of her mother’s drowning, and for her father to snap out of his depression. But Ignacio can’t. He spends listless afternoons smoking cigarettes in long blonde wigs, telenovelas humming in the background, haunted not only by matrimonial guilt, but by memories of a young man he once loved and betrayed.

From Ignacio’s tragic past emerges the luminous queen of Bogotá’s queer underground, Mamadora Eléctrica, the wise travesti who he first met under the silvery lights of Club Aquario when he was just a shy country boy. With Alma gone, Mamadora steps in as a mother figure to Valentina the way she once did for the girl’s father. But as an expert in Travesti Lore, she fears the worst: that Ignacio’s self-destruction may have unleashed a curse on them all.

Julián Delgado Lopera is the author of Fiebre Tropical, winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction and finalist for the Kirkus Prize and Aspen Literary Prize, among other honors. Born and raised in Colombia, Julián teaches Creative Writing at CUNY. He lives in Brooklyn.

 Michelle Tea is the author of many titles, most recently the novel Little F and the anthology CLOWNS. In November, HarperOne will publish her book Free Love: Adventures in Marriage and Polyamory. She is founding editor at DOPAMINE Books.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Skylight

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-julian-delgado-lopera-presents-pretend-youre-dead-and-i-carry-you-w-michelle-tea

Red Light Lit Presents: Kimberly Gomes, with Guests & A Room of Her Own at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event

 Kimberly Gomes will pr4esetn and discuss A Room of Her Own.

Kimberly Gomes is a writer, songslinger, and creativity coach. She is the author of the poetry collection Love Notes to the Body and the debut novel A Road of Her Own, which was a semi-finalist for the 2022 Black Lawrence Press Prose Book Award. Her work has been named a top personal essay of 2021 by Entropy Magazine and has appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle and Sunset Magazine. When she’s not creating, Kimberly can be found hiking mountains, planning her next passport stamp, and swing dancing with people she loves. Learn more at kimberly-gomes.com and @writeon_kim.

Hannah Olabosibe Eko is a Nigerian-American writer, multimedia storyteller, and book doula. 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. Meetups happen the last Sunday of every month. Follow @thelitclub.cannabis and subscribe at thelitclub.substack.com.

Jennifer Lewis is a writer, editor, and publisher of Red Light Lit. Her debut short story collection, The New Low (Black Lawrence Press), was an SPD Bestseller. She is the winner of the Nomadic Press Bindle Award and The Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction Award. Her fiction has appeared in Cosmonauts Avenue, Midnight Breakfast, The Los Angeles Press, and CRAFT, among others. Her nonfiction has appeared in The Rumpus, The Creative Independent, and Alta Journal, where her piece “The High Desert’s Funkiest Art Gallery” won the Los Angeles Press Club’s 17th annual National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award. She received her MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University and teaches at The Writing Salon in San Francisco.

Shana Mirambeau is a Cuban and Haitian multidisciplinary creative: writer, trauma-informed healer, tarot reader, and mystical teacher. Her writing moves between multicultural narrative and spiritual mysticism. A Southern California resident, she manages a metaphysical shop, leads spiritual workshops. and classes, and offers intuitive tarot readings. Shana is often connecting with nature, writing poems, completing her book, and resting her body.

Linda Ravenswood is a Los Angeles–based poet and performance artist, and the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Los Angeles Press and Bespoke Poets. She is the author of Cantadora—Letters from California, The Stan Poems, and more. Her honors include the Oxford Prize in Poetry, the Edwin Markham Prize, selected by former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, the Gloucestershire Prize, and the Arthur Smith Prize.

Flying Mountains is an experimental musical project creating immersive live soundscapes that blend improvisation, atmosphere, and emotional storytelling.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Stories Books & Café

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://storiesla.com/events/5490520260610

Ticketed: James Ellroy & Red Sheet at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

 James Ellroy will discuss and sign his new novel Red Sheet.

Turn to the first page. Disavow what you think you know about the so-called Red Scare. This is commie malfeasance and ’60s L.A. as you’ve never read it before.

It’s late October 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis has just concluded. The Russkies blinked and pulled their ICBMs out of Cuba. Attorney General Robert Kennedy fears reprisals from seething commies. He orders a red probe and puts the LAPD on the job.

Freddy Otash is injudiciously named the lead investigating officer. He’s a stone-cold criminal with police sanction and a harrowing dope habit. He homes in on a red-front trade union. There’s a murder on Halloween night. It may link to ex-VP and current gubernatorial candidate Richard Nixon and two commie snuffs from eight years back. Freddy’s overworked and overamped. He’s running the probe, and Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman—Tricky Dick Nixon’s head goons—have hired him to keep Nixon away from the smear-minded press.

L.A. is coming unglued. Ex-cop/lawyer Tom Bradley is running for a city council seat and pushing the Rumford Fair Housing Act. Playboy kingpin Hugh Hefner is along for the ride, out to exploit racial tension and peddle untold copies of his smut rag.

Red Sheet is James Ellroy’s most crazed kamikaze run and a daring, subversive work of fiction.

This is a ticketed event through Eventbrite. Your ticket includes one entry and one copy of Red Sheet to be handed out at check-in.

A book signing will follow the presentation.

Questions? email promo@vromansbookstore.com or call us at (626)449-5320.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Wednesday the 10^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

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 10^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: Where Did This Go Wrong?

Where: Art Parlor

Date: Wednesday the 10^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 10^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

Address: Online event (see site)

Daniel Romo is the author of American Manscape (Moon Tide Press 2026), Bum Knees and Grieving Sunsets (FlowerSong Press 2023), Moonlighting as an Avalanche (Tebot Bach 2021), and other books. He received an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, and he lives, writes, and rides his bikes in Long Beach, CA. More at danieljromo.com.

$5 cover fee, cash only

Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange

Date: Wednesday, the 10^th

Time: 8 pm – 10 pm

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

Website: Facebook 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: Thursday the 11^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Website: Event Page

Lawndale Library Book Club: The Queen of Sugar Hill at Lawndale Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Patrons can enjoy a facilitated discussion of fiction and nonfiction titles. A limited number of titles are available for attendees at the library. June’s Pick: The Queen of Sugar Hill: a novel of Hattie McDaniel by ReShonda Tate. For adults.

It was supposed to be the highlight of her career, the pinnacle for which she’d worked all her life. And as Hattie McDaniel took the stage in 1940 to claim an honor that would make her the first African-American woman to win an Academy Award, she tearfully took her place in history. Between personal triumphs and tragedies, heartbreaking losses, and severe setbacks, this historic night of winning best supporting actress for her role as the sassy Mammy in the controversial movie Gone With the Wind was going to be life-changing. Or so she thought.

Where: Lawndale Library,LACL

Date: Thursday the 11^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: 14615 Burin Ave., Lawndale, CA 90260

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

Special Author Luncheon Event: Michelle Huneven & Bug Hollow at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event

Join us to welcome Michelle Huneven who will be discussing her new book Bug Hollow. Join us for a multi course luncheon at Barsha in Manhattan Beach where Michelle will discuss Bug Hollow, releasing 5/26/26 in paperback. Ticket includes a signed paperback of Bug Hollow and lunch.

Bug Hollow is a decades-spanning family saga featuring the messy but loving Samuelson clan trying to make sense of the world after the loss of their son Ellis.

When Sally Samuelson was eight years old, her golden boy brother Ellis went missing the summer he graduated high school. Ellis finally turned up at the bucolic Bug Hollow, a last gasp of the beautiful Northern California counterculture in the seventies. He had found joy in the communal life there, but died in a freak accident weeks later.

From that point, the world of the Samuelsons never spins on the same axis, especially after Julia, Ellis’s girlfriend from Bug Hollow, shows up pregnant on their doorstep. Each Samuelson has sought their own solace: Sybil Samuelson pours herself into teaching and numbing her pain after the loss of her beloved son; her husband, Phil, had found respite in a love that developed while he was working as an engineer in Saudi Arabia; Katie, the high achieving middle Samuelson, comes home to try and make peace with her mother after a cancer diagnosis. And Sally has become the de facto caretaker to Eva, the child Ellis never knew.

Michelle Huneven is “known for five enthralling novels, which chronicle the lives of middle-class Americans in her lushly conjured native California, as her characters struggle with addiction, excruciating romances, and resounding losses as they continue to seek meaning and a way to be good” (American Academy of Arts and Letters). She captures the Samuelson clan with glorious precision and the deepest empathy as they fracture and rebuild again and again.

Where: pages Off-site at Barsha Manhattan Beach

Date: Thursday the 11^th

Time: 11;30 am – 1 pm

Address: 917 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 

Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2026-06-11/special-author-luncheon-michelle-huneven

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

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

Where: Westwood Branch Library,LAPL

Date: Thursday the 11^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: Culpability at Culver City Julian Dixon Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join Culver City Julian Dixon Library’s Mystery Book Club to discuss Culpability by Bruce Holsinger. For adults.

Summary provided by the publisher:

When the Cassidy-Shaws’ autonomous minivan collides with an oncoming car, seventeen-year-old Charlie is in the driver’s seat, with his father, Noah, riding shotgun. In the back seat, tweens Alice and Izzy are on their phones, while their mother, Lorelei, a world leader in the field of artificial intelligence, is absorbed in her work. Yet each family member harbors a secret, implicating them all in the tragic accident.

Noah tries to hold the family together as a seemingly routine police investigation jeopardizes Charlie’s future. Alice and Izzy turn strangely furtive. And Lorelei’s odd behavior tugs at Noah’s suspicions that there is a darker truth behind the incident—suspicions heightened by the sudden intrusion of Daniel Monet, a tech mogul whose mysterious history with Lorelei hints at betrayal.

Where: Culver City Julian Dixon Library,LACL

Date: Thursday the 11^th

Time: 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16281240

Author Talk: Matt Dinniman & A Parade of Horribles via Virtual Event, LACL – Online Event

Hold onto your heart-patterned boxers! Matt Dinniman, New York Times bestselling author of the wildly popular (and just plain wild) Dungeon Crawler Carl series, joins us to chat about his latest book, A Parade of Horribles.

As chaos and mass panic spread outside the dungeon in the wake of Faction Wars, Carl and Donut find themselves on the tenth floor, where they’re forced to compete in a surprisingly normal set of tasks. Well, normal for the dungeon.

Races. Get from point A to point B, and don’t come in last. After each race, they pick an upgrade for their vehicle and the track gets more challenging. It all seems a little too normal, a little too simple.

Ignore those strange glitches that are occurring with increasing frequency. Don’t listen to those whispers about what’s happening on the mysterious eleventh floor, something the system AI calls A Parade of Horribles. Nobody, not even the showrunners, knows what that means. Just that the AI has ominously dubbed it “a coming-out party for the ages.”

Everything is fine, Crawler. I repeat, everything is fine.

Carl hates that it’s business as usual. The rules of this floor have taken away his agency. That just will not do.

So, Carl is planning a party of his own. It’s a plan so dangerous, so insane, he can’t even consult his friends lest the AI put a stop to it. Because if it goes wrong, it’s not just the end of Carl and Donut. No. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been.

Register now for a fun-filled discussion you won’t want to miss!

Matt Dinniman is a writer and artist from Gig Harbor, Washington. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling Dungeon Crawler Carl series along with several other books about the end of the world.

He doesn’t really hate Cocker Spaniels, and he plays bass in one band.

Date: Thursday the 11^th

Time: 4 pm – 5 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Phoenix is a queer author of horror like erotica and erotica like horror. An unashamed enthusiast of the carnal, compostable, and corporeal, she is wholly dedicated to finding and luxuriating in the junction where beauty and disgust meet to rot together. Find out more: @bloodinkbonewriting.

RSVP at website.

All workshops are pay-what-you-can by donation, with proceeds supporting the Underdog Bookstore 501(c)(3) non-profit.

Where: Underdog Bookstore

Date: Thursday the 11^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.underdogbookstore.org/events/queer-romance

Author Event: Dr. Gillian Goddard, with Dr. Cara Netterson, & The Hormone Loop at Zibby’s Bookshop – In-Person Event

Join us to welcome Dr. Gillian Goddard, in conversation with Dr. Cara Netterson, to discuss The Hormone Loop.

Take charge of your hormonal health at every stage of your life—from your first period to post menopause—with this groundbreaking, definitive guide from the force behind the viral Hot Flash Substack.

Where: Zibby’s Bookshop

Date: Thursday the 11^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

Address: 1113 Montana Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90403 

Website: Eventbrite Page

Death and Dying Book Club: The Final Act of Living at Bel Canto Books, Retro Row – In-Person Event

Bel Canto Books and the Marigold Death Collective host the Death and Dying Book Club on the second Thursday, Every other month, form 6:30 – 8 pm.

June’s selection for discussion is The Final Act of Living by Barbara Karnes. This book is often read by hospice workers, families, and patients, and it demystifies end-of-life care and explains the physical and emotional changes that happen as a person goes through the dying process.

Where: Bel Canto Books, Retro Row

Date: Thursday the 11^th

Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm

Address: 2106 E. 4^th St., Long Beach, CA 90814

Website: Eventbrite Page

Samuel Garza Bernstein & Roddy Mc Dowell: An Actor’s Life at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Author Samuel Garza Bernstein will discuss Roddy McDowell: An Actor’s Life—From “How Green Was My Valley” to “Lassie” to “Planet of the Apes”.

Here is the comprehensive, first-ever biography of the award-winning child star, Planet of the Apes movie icon, beloved film legend, and Hollywood renaissance man whose career spanned 60 years.

As one of the very few naturally gifted child actors who graduated into adult roles with relative ease, Roddy McDowall exuded charm throughout a glorious Hollywood run that included film, television, and Broadway. John Ford’s 1941 classic How Green Was My Valley put Roddy on the map at 12-years-old. It won Best Picture over Citizen Kane and is Clint Eastwood’s favorite film of all time. But Roddy’s biggest claim to fame was yet to come.

The phenomenally popular Planet of the Apes film series, which ran from 1968-1973, introduced him to a whole new generation of fans. In a career spanning 60 years, Roddy was also a professional photographer, producer and director, starstruck movie lover himself, and film preservationist.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Thursday the 11^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-06-11/samuel-garza-bernstein

Trenches Full of Poets Reading Series: Diosa Xochiquetzalcoatl, Iris De Anda & Xitlatic Guijosa-Osunaat Page Against the Machine – In-Person Event

June’s Trenches Full of Poets Reading Series will host in-store readings with three SoCal poets:

Diosa Xochiquetzalcoatl is a multilingual and multidimensional poetiza with a Bachelor’s in English and a Master’s in Cross-Cultural Teaching. She has spent a lifetime as an educator working with English Learners and immigrants from all walks of life. She currently works as an ESL teacher, serves as a board member for Circulo de poetas and Writers, forms part of Inlandia’s Cultura Without Borders committee, teaches as a CalPoet for California Poets in Schools, and is a member of Women Who Submit and the International Poetry Troupe, Tesoro. She is the author of seven full-length poetry collections and one chapbook, with more books on the horizon.

Iris De Anda is a Guanaca Tapatia poet & musician who has been featured internationally. She is the author of 𝘊𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩: 𝘍𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘔𝘪 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘻𝘰𝘯, 𝘙𝘰𝘰𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘙𝘦𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯: 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘕𝘰 𝘙𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘙𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵, 𝘓𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘗𝘰𝘦𝘮𝘴: 𝘉-𝘚𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘺 & 𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘴, and her just-released 𝘗𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘏𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘙𝘌𝘋.

Xitlatic Guijosa-Osuna is a Southeast L.A. Michoacana-Sinaloense poeta, visual artist and teaching artist. She is the owner and creator of Tarjetitas con Amor greeting cards that represent her community as well as her family. She writes and prints about Guayabas, her Madre, her grandmothers, and memories. Her poetry has been featured in 𝘔𝘶𝘫𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴 𝘥𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘪𝘻 𝘦𝘯 𝘔𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘰: 𝘚𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘈𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘮, 𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘍𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘗𝘳𝘢𝘹𝘪𝘴, ONE: BODY, MIND, SPIRIT, and 2018 Latin American Cinemateca of Los Angeles. She has been highlighted in VoyageLA, and is a contributor to L.A. Taco, and has facilitated numerous creative writing, printing, and journaling workshops with various organizations in the Los Angeles area.

Taking its name from a Clash lyric, Trenches Ful 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.

Where: Page Against the Machine

Date: Thursday the 11^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: Facebook Page

At Skylight: Mary H. K. Choi, with Yasi Salek, & Pool House at Skylight – In-Person Event

Mary H.K. Choi, in conversation with Yasi Salek, will discuss Pool House: A Novel.

Bestselling young adult author Mary H.K. Choi debuts a brilliantly observed adult novel about mothers, daughters, and the complexity of family set against the backdrop of Hollywood.

Stevie cannot escape her mother. Abandoning college plans to work a dead-end job, her days are a purgatorial bore. Many dream of moving to L.A. and into the spotlight, but Stevie can’t wait to move away from it, and her mother’s orbit, to start over.

Moon is many things: an out-of-work actress, a recovering addict, whatever a mistress becomes when she’s widowed, and a mother. Reeling in the aftermath of her lover and TV husband’s death, Moon struggles to process her grief. And the last thing she expects is for Stevie to leave her too.

Now, neither Stevie nor Moon can afford to quit each other. And their cost of living forces them into a glass-walled pool house in the backyard, while their home is rented out to pay the bills.

Pool House is a course charted through the wilderness of motherhood, a story about the challenges of navigating class, fame, burgeoning sexuality, and grief as two women grapple with what it means to grow up and grow older in Hollywood.

Mary H.K. Choi is the New York Times bestselling author whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, New York, GQ and Elle. Formerly she was the culture correspondent for Vice News on HBO, a columnist at Wired and Allure magazine, a guest columnist for the Townies series at the New York Times Opinion desk, as well as the executive producer of the House of Style documentary on MTV. She was awarded the Katherine Min fellowship at MacDowell and has also written comics for Marvel and DC.

Yasi Salek is a writer and the host and creator of The Ringer music podcast Bandsplain.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Skylight

Date: Thursday the 11^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-mary-hk-choi-presents-pool-house-w-yasi-salek

Shay Kauwe, with Keala Kendall, & The Killing Spell at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

 Shay Kauwe, in conversation with Keala Kendall, will discuss and sign The Killing Spell.

In this spellbinding fantasy debut set in a future where language magic reigns, a young Hawaiian woman must solve a murder to clear her name.

Kea Petrova is dealing with more than her fair share of trouble.

At just twenty-five years old, she’s the youngest of five Hawaiian clan leaders living on the Homestead in outer Los Angeles. Nearly 200 years ago, when a catastrophic flood submerged the Hawaiian islands and unleashed magic into the world, these clans forged a treaty with the city, establishing a new Hawaiian homeland. But that treaty is about to expire.

Kea struggles to keep her small clan afloat, scraping together rent each month through odd jobs and selling her own crafted Hawaiian language spells. While her talent for language magic is her saving grace, she feels like a shadow of those who came before her. Just when she thinks things can’t get any more complicated, the murder of Angelo Reyes—LA’s most prominent Filipino activist—urns her world upside-down.

Angelo was killed by a death spell—something that, due to the properties of each school of language magic, can only exist in Hawaiian. With independent spellsmithing being technically illegal, Kea quickly becomes the prime suspect, known for her spellwork on the Homestead. To clear her name, she must unravel the mystery behind Angelo’s murder and confront LA’s most powerful (and dangerous) players, each wielding their own type of magic. The clock is ticking—can Kea save herself, her clan, and the Homestead before it’s too late?

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Thursday the 11^th

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

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

Poetry Diet Mic Night is a weekly open mic, every Thursday, dedicated to language, rhythm, and truth-telling. Set inside The Living Room DTLA, this night creates space for poets, writers, and creatives to share their work in an intimate, supportive atmosphere.

Whether you’re stepping to the mic or just soaking it all in, expect thoughtful performances, real energy, and a room that listens.

Hosted by: Kerm (Jonathan Kermah)

Music by: DJ Stardust

🎤 Open mic sign-ups available

🕯️ Intimate lounge setting

🍸 Bar open

Where: The Living Room, DTLA

Date: Thursday the 11^th

Time: 8:30 pm – 10:30 pm

Address: 1014 S. Main St., Los Angeles, CA (Door 123)

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 for a brief intro and 40 minutes of free writing on any topic without judgement. Afterwards, you will be able to share a bit about your process and ask Francesca questions about your writing.

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

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Friday the 12^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 12^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 12^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: Event Page

Teen Creative Writing Series with CB Lee at Montrey Park Bruggemeyer Library, Computer Lab – In-Person Teen Event

Join us for an introduction to creative writing. Teens will learn how to write a short story, get feedback on character arcs and scenes, put together a tiny zine of their work, and more! For details, visit our website or text Teen Services at (626) 283-6062.

Free to attend.

Where: Monterey Park Bruggemeyer Library, Computer Lab

Date: Friday, the 12^th

Time: 3 pm

Address: 318 S. Ramona Ave., Monterey Park, CA 91754

Website: Instagram Page

Book Launch: Ru Marshall, with Vanda Krefft, & American Trickster at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event

Ru Marshall, in conversation with Vanda Krefft, will present and discuss American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Casteneda

This biography investigates the life of the secretive author Carlos Casteneda, author of The Teachings of Don Juan, presenting him as a charismatic narcissist who perpetrated a major literary hoax. The book explores Castaneda’s manipulative techniques, cult dynamics, and spiritual abuse, while also serving as a critique of academia’s role in distorting Indigenous culture. Marshall’s work is described as a deep dive into Castaneda’s fabricated reality, his early life in Peru, and the disappearance of his followers after his death.

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Friday the 12^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-da33805f-774c-4149-ba7c-123fa77ce51d

Self-Care Book Club: The Practice of Attention at Cellar Door Bookstore, Riverside – In-Person Event

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Friday the 12^th

Time: 6 pm – 7 pm

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

Website: https://cellardoorbookstore.com/event/2026-06-12/self-care-book-club-practice-attention

More info coming soon.

RSVP is recommended but not required. Entry and seating are first-come, first-served. RSVPs do not guarantee entry to a full event.

Where: Skylight

Date: Friday the 12^th

Time: 6:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-uc-riverside-mfa-reading-0

Comics O’Clock: A Live Comics Reading with Mikey Heller at Heavy Manners Library – In-Person Event

Comics O’Clock is a comics reading featuring live readings by local cartoonists hosted by Mikey Heller. This event will be pay what you want, with donations going to Heavy Manners Library.

Mariah-Rose Marie is the arts worker behind the books Cook Like Your Ancestors, the international recipe collection and guide to intuitive cooking, the all-ages mental health educator A Quick & Easy Guide to Healthy Relationships, and the forthcoming Afro-Indigenous futurist graphic novel Go Back & Get It, coming in 2028.Mariah-Rose’s storyboard, comic, and illustration works can be found streaming on HBO and Netflix, or in publications such as The New Yorker, EATER, Science for the People Magazine, or the award-winning comic journalism hub, The Nib.

Mon Nguyen-Vo is a Vietnamese-American illustrator based in Los Angeles specializing in visual development, background paint, and color design. She also has experience in editorial illustration and comics!

Tommy Attwood is a writer, illustrator, and cartoonist from Los Angeles. He earned his BS from NYU and his MFA in Illustration and Visual Culture from Washington University in St. Louis. At WashU, he received the Sam Fox Ambassador Fellowship and the Walt Reed Award for Excellence in Writing on Visual Culture for his critical essay, “Lines of Thought: The Cartoon as a Phenomenological Object and a Philosophical Tool.”

Janelle Feng is a Visual Development and Story artist. She is currently based in LA and graduated with a degree in Character Animation from California Institute of the Arts in 2024. Outside of art, she enjoys studying the French Revolution, especially Maximilien Robespierre.

Patrick Harpin attended CalArts for Character Animation. After, he entered the industry working as a Storyboard Artist.He’s storyboarded for directors such as Wes Anderson (Moonrise Kingdom), Mike Judge (‘Tales of the Tour Bus’ on HBO), and Genndy Tartakovsky (Hotel Transylvania 2 & 3).

Emily Clouse is a comedy writer and cartoonist currently residing in Los Angeles. Her comedy screenplays have gotten attention from the The Black List, the Academy Nicholl Fellowship, the Austin Film Festival, and more.

Eric Kubli lives in Glendale, California. He has worked as an Art Director, Animator, Illustrator, Graphic Designer, Toy Designer, and Web Developer, and has a lifelong passion for cartoons. He is the Creative Director of Merchandise at Game Grumps.

Chalky Wong was born in Hong Kong and graduated with a BFA in character animation at California Institute of the Arts. He interned at Intoxic studio in Hong Kong as well as Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California. He currently resides in Los Angeles where he works as a Visual Development Artist and Background Painter. When he’s not working, he can be found with his head buried in a sci-fi novel or hunting for good Dim Sum.

Note: Buy A Ticket at Website

Where: Heavy Manners Library

Date: Friday the 12^th

Time: 7 pm

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

Website: https://heavymannerslibrary.com/events/comics-o-clock-a-comic-reading-6-12

Book Launch: Teo Rivera-Dundas, with Sarah Yanni and Jhani Randhawa, & Slow Guillotine at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event

Teo Rivera-Dundas, with Sara Yanni and Jhani Randhawa, will present and discuss Slow Guillotine.

Teo Rivera-Dundas is the author of Slow Guillotine, winner of the University of Nebraska Press’s 2026 Barbara DiBernard Prize in Fiction. His short fiction has appeared in Gulf Coast, Prairie Schooner, and Meridian. He lives in Western Massachusetts.

Sarah Yanni is the author of Hard Crush (Wonder Press, 2024) and ternura/tenderness (Bottlecap Press, 2019). A Best of the Net nominee, her work can be found in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Pleaides, Mizna, Nat Brut, Wildness, APOGEE, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from CalArts and presently sits on their Alumni Council.

Jhani Randhawa is an interdisciplinary teaching artist and independent scholar whose work interweaves experimental poetics and prose with video, performance, and archival photography in a study of cyborgian/monstrous dreamscapes and the entangled expressions of memory, embodiment, and agriculture as they bind the colonial to the contemporary postcolonial moment. Jhani is author of Time Regime, winner of the 2023 California Book Award, and their work has most recently featured at UnionDocs and in poet Maw Shein Win’s project, Two Cherries.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Stories Books & Café

Date: Friday the 12^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://storiesla.com/events/5212520260612

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

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

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

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Friday the 12^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: Event Page

Laura Lekkos, with Elissa Sussman, & All the Little Ways at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Laura Lekkos, in conversation with Elissa Sussman, will discuss and sign All the Little Ways.

This is a smart, heartfelt debut novel about two expecting mothers navigating motherhood, family life, and female friendship, whose bond is threatened by a shocking revelation.

Victoria and Liz barely breathe the same air, but they collide headfirst when they meet in a group for expectant mothers and find common ground against all odds.

Victoria, forty-three, is confident, poised, and powerful, on the fast track to major career success in finance. Having kids is not in the plan. She had avoided love for decades—and hadn’t been too keen on female friendship either—when she fell for Ace, a dashing man twenty years her senior.

Liz, thirty-two, lives a fairly unstable life, trying to make her situationship work and navigate a job on a vile reality dating show. She’s desperately wanted to experience motherhood for her entire life, but anxiety and insecurity have landed her with a laundry list of failed romances. It’s an accident—ish—when she gets pregnant with her emotionally elusive boyfriend Preston’s baby just shy of a year into dating.

When Liz and Victoria meet in a parenting class, they both feel out of place amongst these pregnant women who seem to have it all figured out. They grapple with impending motherhood together and lean on each other to navigate important decisions about family, career, and love. It’s the first successful female friendship in Victoria’s life and the first time Liz has felt so connected to an older, wiser confidante. Maybe, just maybe, it will all be okay.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Friday the 12^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-06-12/laura-lekkos

L.A. Book Launch: Rogue Astronaut by Mitchell Jacobs at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Join us for the book launch of Rogue Astronaut by Mitchell Jacobs. The author will be joined by Darren Donate, Maxwell Suzuki, and Jorrell Watkins for a poetry reading in The Wanda Coleman Theater. Reception & book signings to follow.

Finalist for the 2026 Miller Williams Poetry Prize, at the core of Rogue Astronaut, Mitchell Jacobs’s debut poetry collection, is a mystery: Was the poet’s father abducted by aliens as a teenager? From this uncanny family lore spins a gravitational field of theory, grief, and imagination, spurring speculations about the extraterrestrial as well as the terrestrial question of familial bonds: What are the limits of understanding between two alien anatomies, between two unlike minds? Are we, after all, finally alone?

In poems that continually veer from play to reverence, from body horror to bodily delight, encounters with bed bugs and cuttlefish appear side by side with retro gaming and phantom light. A brother living with delusions turns toward the sky. The poet also peers skyward in search of connection—across family lines, across the body’s borders, across galaxies. Outer space becomes a metaphorical terrain where queer desire and spiritual longing collide. Just as Agent Mulder’s iconic X-Files poster declares “I WANT TO BELIEVE,” so do these poems ache to trust in something more—extraterrestrial life, divine presence, intimacy.

Mitchell Jacobs is a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California, where he served as managing editor of Ricochet Editions. His poems have won the Iowa Review Prize and the Prufer Prize from Pleiades. His debut book of poems, Rogue Astronaut (University of Arkansas Press, 2026), was selected by Patricia Smith as a finalist in the Miller Williams Poetry Series.

Darren Donate is a PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California. His poetry is forthcoming in The Penn Review and has been recently published in Hunger Mountain Review, issue #33. He is currently working on a small chapbook of poems.

Maxwell Suzuki is a queer writer who lives in Los Angeles. He is on the staff of The Rumpus and Split Lip Press. Maxwell is the author of the fiction chapbook, Voyager 2, This is Voyager 1, Over (Gold Line Press, 2024), and the poetry chapbook, Bust of an Athlete (Iron Horse Literary Review, 2024). His work has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Craft Literary, Lunch Ticket, The Normal School, and South Dakota Review.

Jorrell Watkins is from Richmond, VA. His disability inclusive play Meet us at the Horizon was produced by Combined Efforts Theater Co. for its 2019 world premiere. His chapbook If Only the Sharks Would Bite won the inaugural Desert Pavilion Chapbook Series in Poetry (Black Rock Press, 2020). He is also the coauthor of Studies in Brotherly Love (Prompt Press, 2021), a poetry chapbook based on Malcolm Corley’s paintings, with Claretta Holsey, DJ Savarese, and Lateef McLeod. His debut full-length collection, PlayHouse was published by Northwestern University Press in 2024.

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

Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date: Thursday, the 11^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

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

Website: Eventbrite Page

LiveTalks LA Presents: An Evening with Laverne Cox & Transcendent at Anna and Jerry Moss Theatre, New Roads School – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Laverne Cox will discuss and sign her memoir Transcendent.

Four-time Emmy-nominated actress Laverne Cox shares her journey as a transgender woman in Hollywood, confronting childhood trauma, shame, gender identity, her transition, body image issues, her search for romantic love, deep-seated feelings of unworthiness, and ultimately, healing.

In Transcendent, you will experience life in Laverne’s shoes, from her childhood abuse to making her big break, dealing with Hollywood bureaucracy, feeling lonely in a world that is unaccepting, and finding her voice through the chaos of it all. With behind-the-scenes stories and personal reflection, we can heal and fight for equality, right alongside Laverne.

Laverne Cox is an Emmy-winning actress, producer, and LGBTQ+ advocate best known for her role as Sophia Burset on Orange Is the New Black, which made her the first openly transgender person nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. Born in Mobile, Alabama, she studied at the Alabama School of Fine Arts before pursuing acting in New York City. Cox has been a trailblazer for transgender representation in media, using her platform to advocate for trans rights and visibility. She made history again as the first transgender person to win a Daytime Emmy as an executive producer for Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word. Beyond acting, she is a sought-after speaker and activist, working to challenge discrimination and promote inclusivity. She is also host of her own podcast by iHeartRadio and Shondaland: The Laverne Cox Show. She resides in New York City.

NOTE: See site to RSVP.

Where: Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre, New Roads School 

Date: Friday the 12^th

Time: 8 pm

Address: 3131 Olympic Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90404

Website: LiveTalks Event Page

Rapp Saloon Reading Series: Second Fridays Open Mic with hosts Peggy Dobreer & Slow Lightning Lit: Gloom & Bloom at Rapp Saloon, Santa Monica – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Second Fridays at Rapp Saloon is celebrating 10 years and has an Open Mic & Featured Readers every 2^nd Friday of the month.

Second Friday: Peggy Dobreer & Slow Lightning, Host

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

Bernadette McComish earned an M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence, and an M.A. in TESOL from Hunter. Her poems have appeared in Cortland Review, Sunday Salon, Hospital Drive, Slipstream, Storyscape, Rag Queen Periodical, and she was a finalist for the New Millennium Writers 41st poetry prize. Her collection: The Book of Johns (Dancing Girl Press 2018). She teaches High School in Los Angeles and believes that poetry is medicine.

Charle Harper Webb is the nation’s foremost proponent of Stand-Up Poetry. A former professional rock singer/guitarist and licensed psychotherapist, he is Professor of English at California State University, Long Beach. His latest of twelve collections of poetry is Sidebend World (University of Pittsburgh, 2018). Webb has published a collection of essays, A Million MFAs Are Not Enough (Red Hen, 2016), and edited Stand Up Poetry: An Expanded Anthology (University of Iowa, 2002), used as a text in many universities. His awards include a Whiting Writer’s Award, a Tufts Discovery Award, and a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. An avid fly-fisherman, he lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Music: Sophia Joy Diaz

NOTE: See site or flyer for details.

Where: Rapp Saloon at HISUA

Date: Friday, the 12^th

Time: 8:30 pm – 11 pm

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

Website: Instagram Page

Writing Workshop: How to Get Work Ready to Publish, with Brenda Vaca via palabrasdelpueblo – Online Zoom Event

Join Brenda Vaca of Riot of Roses Publishing for a writing Workshop: How to Get Work Ready to Publish.

Tickets: available at palabrasdelpueblo website link.

Where: palabrasdelpuebloworkshop.com

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 9 am – 1 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event

Website: Instagram Page

Special Storytime with Snow Zheng & Impossible Light at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Kids Event

Families are invited to a bilingual Saturday Story Time featuring Snow Zheng in celebration of the book Impossible Light: 永远的光, which was written alongside the creation of the Hollywood Fringe production Light.

This special story time will feature English/Chinese storytelling with integrated shadow puppetry, a short conversation with children and families about family, memory, and storytelling, and signed books available for families who are interested!

The story follows a daughter and her father through moments of joy, loss, and courage—showing how love becomes a light that never fades. Beautifully illustrated by Yiou Pan and edited and produced by Gene Hwang, this heartfelt book bridges Eastern and Western storytelling, inviting families to read, feel, and heal together.

The creative team would also like to offer a promotional code to those interested in watching their Hollywood Fringe production. Tickets can be purchased at the following link:

Hollywood Fringe Link

We look forward to hosting this exciting story time and seeing you there!

Please RSVP to amy@pagesabookstore.com

Where: pages: a bookstore

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 9:30 am – 10 am

Join us for the first-ever Spring Arts Tower Takeover, a one-of-a-kind pop-up market featuring hundreds of vendors in the empty floors of our historic downtown building.

The Spring Arts Tower Takeover will take place on Saturday, June 13, from 10 am to 6 pm. All twelve floors of the Spring Arts Tower, along with the Last Bookstore itself, will be filled to the brim with vendors of all kinds, from arts and crafts to collectibles, oddities, and much, much more!

Tickets guarantee entry for one person to the entire event, from the Last Bookstore all the way up to the top of the Spring Arts Tower. Tickets are sold in two-hour increments to be mindful of the building’s capacity. Please be mindful of the time slot on your ticket when making your purchase.

Advance tickets also come with a $3 coupon to the Last Bookstore that can be redeemed at the checkout counter on the day of the event!

Please feel free to reach out to festivals@lastbookstorela.com with any questions about the event. We hope to see you there!

Tickets available at website link.

Where: The Last Bookstore

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 10 am – 6 pm

Address: 453 S. Spring St., Ground Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90013

Website: https://www.lastbookstorela.com/event-list

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

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

Come join acclaimed author and writing instructor Francesca Lia Block for a brief intro and 40 minutes of free writing on any topic without judgement. Afterwards, you will be able to share a bit about your process and ask Francesca questions about your writing.

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

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 10 am – 11 am

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

Website: Event Page

Book Club for Adults: The Great Alone at Hacienda Heights Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for an engaging discussion of our latest selection, The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. 

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

Where: Hacienda Heights Library, LACL

Date: Saturday, the 13^th

Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15982344

Drag Story Hour at West Hollywood Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Join us for a fun drag storytime with the fabulous Pickle reading stories that promote diversity and inclusion! Co-sponsored by the City of West Hollywood through WeHo Arts. For children of all ages.

Where: West Hollywood Library, LACL

Date: Saturday, the 13^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16447888

Book Club: The Autobiography of Alice B. Tolkas at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Read the book and join our lively discussion!

Please note that the club will meet on the third Saturday in September. There is no December meeting.

June 13: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 11 am – 1 pm

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

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

Classics Book Club: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

This community-led, monthly book discussion group typically meets virtually at 11 a.m. on the second Saturday of the month. This book group discusses prize-winning fiction titles. To register, email library@santamonica.gov.

June 13: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain.

Where: Santa Monica Library, SMPL

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 11 am – 12:30 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event

Website: Event Page

Storytime w/ Caroline L. Perry & Messi’s Magic at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Kids Event

Join us for a special storytime with author Caroline L. Perry who will read from her book Messi’s Magic.

How did a small, shy, soccer-obsessed child with a serious medical condition become a goal-scoring, record-breaking, once-in-a-generation sensation?

For everyone who loves soccer, dreams big, and is inspired by heroes who triumph against the odds, Messi’s Magic delivers a thrilling, deeply emotional story.

Filled with action-packed pictures and never-before-seen detail, it spotlights Lionel “Leo” Messi’s early years and shows how, even when facing loss, loneliness, and setbacks, he never gave up on his goal. Leo’s resilience and big-heartedness on the journey to become the G.O.A.T. are as inspiring as his dazzling style of play. This humble hero has ignited passion in millions and sparked the movement: MessiMania!

Enriched with statistics, career highlights, a timeline, and fun facts, Messi’s Magic is a gift to soccer fans of all ages.

Caroline L. Perry is the author of the acclaimed picture book The Corgi and the Queen illustrated by Lydia Corry, as well as several forthcoming books for children. A lifelong soccer fan, a youth soccer coach, and mum to three soccer-obsessed kids (who can frequently be found squabbling over goal stats), Caroline also volunteers as a public-school writing instructor.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: Event Page

Author Signing: Emily Singer & Doll Baby at Zibby’s Bookshop – In-Person Event

Join us for an author booksigning with Emily Singer and her book Doll Baby.

Lyrical, biting, and achingly tender, Doll Baby captures what it means to come of age in a city built on illusions, conditioned by attention and privilege, and the delicate, radical act of no longer waiting to be chosen—of finally choosing yourself instead.

Where: Zibby’s Bookshop

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

Address: 1113 Montana Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90301

Website: Event Page

LA Zine Fest: Zine Making at Sunland – Tujunga Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Teen Event

Learn about the history of DIY zine culture and the LA Zine Fest. Browse a traveling zine library for inspiration, then fold, cut, and create your own 8-page mini-zine. Use words, art, or both to express yourself.

All materials will be provided. For ages 11-19.

Where: Sunland – Tujunga Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 11:30 am – 2:30 pm

Address: 7771 Foothill Boulevard, Tujunga, CA 91042

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/zine-making-la-zine-fest

Writers Supporting Writers at West Hollywood Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Looking for a place to connect with fellow writers and grow your craft? Join Writers Supporting Writers! For adults.

Writers Supporting Writers is a monthly library writing group that meets on the first Saturday of every month for writing exercises, thoughtful discussions of attendees’ works in progress, and engaging analysis of published works. We offer an inclusive and supportive environment for writers of every background and experience level to create, share, and grow.

Beverages provided by the Friends of the West Hollywood Library.

Where: West Hollywood Library, LACL

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 12 pm – 2 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15999942

Storytime & Signing with Jocelyn Chung & The River of Caregiving at Bel Canto Books, KUBO LB – In-Person Event

Bel Canto Books is delighted to host a storytime and book signing with Jocelyn Chung author of The River of Caregiving.

Kindly RSVP so we can plan accordingly.

Caregiving flows through a little girl’s family in so many ways, like a river connecting them all. Her grandfather cares for her by picking her up from school with a snack and a smile, and she cares for him by keeping him company at his doctors’ appointments with a snack and a smile. Her mother helps her grandmother get ready for the day, just as her grandmother once helped her mother. And when the relatives send packages to each other, their caring makes them feel closer. Through occasions big and small, it’s a comfort to know this river of love is ever-present, and her family will always be there for each other.

Jocelyn Chung’s evocative text and Sarah Gonzales’ gorgeous pictures remind us that our family’s love is a gift to be treasured.

Jocelyn Chung is a Taiwanese American author and designer. She holds a BFA in Graphic Design and an MA in Asian American studies and has been featured in Harvard Kennedy School’s Asian American Policy Review, USA Today, and NPR. She loves exploring the intersection of thoughtful storytelling and communicative design. Her picture books include When Love Is More Than Words and The River of Caregiving. When she’s not designing or writing, you can find her doodling, café hopping, or on a food-venture somewhere between Los Angeles and Taiwan.

This event will be held indoors at KUBO LB (3976 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach CA).

Where: Bel Canto Books, KUBO LB

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 12 pm – 1:30 pm

Address: 3976 Atlantic Ave, Long Beach, CA 90807

Website: Withfriends Page

Author Event: Sophie Mutiara Nova & Phoning Faust at The Open Book, Pasadena – In-Person Event

Sophie Mutiara Nova will present and discuss Phoning Faust.

Queer mixed Indonesian college student Dian Faust attempts to call the suicide hotline only to dial the wrong number, her finger slipping and typing in six three times.

In this loose retelling of Goethe’s Faust, will Dian save her soul before time runs out—or will she fall prey to the renowned storytelling deception of the infamous Mephistopheles?

RSVP in our Linktree.

Where: The Open Book, Pasadena

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 1 pm – 3 pm

Address: 300 E. Colorado Blvd. Space #161, Pasadena, CA 91101

Website: Instagram Page

Freedom Day: A Juneteenth Storytelling Celebration at Exposition Park – Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us for an evening of music and storytelling as we celebrate Juneteenth, featuring local storytellers, poets, and musicians.

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

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 2 pm – 3:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/freedom-day-juneteenth-storytelling-celebration-0

Your Author Series: Dan Santat at Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

The Los Angeles Public Library is proud to present award-winning author/illustrator (and this year’s Summer with the Library artist) Dan Santat!

He will be discussing his writing and illustrating career, including his newest titles, Don’t Trust Fish and A Fishboy Named…Sashimi.

Thank you to the Library Foundation of Los Angeles with generous support from the Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund.

Where: Studio City Branch Library, LAPL

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm

Address: 12511 Moorpark Street, Studio City, CA 91604

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-dan-santat

Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Poetry Writing Workshop led by DKC via Zoom – Online Event

Join us for a Deep Critique Workshop led by DKC. (Submit up to 3 poems totaling no more than 150 lines including the subject of or at least mentioning sun for Four Feathers Press online edition: SUN by emailing donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59 pm, June 19th).

Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry

Date: Saturday, the 13^th

Time: 3 pm – 4:30 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event

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

C.L. Max Nikias & American Trojan: Leadership, Resilience, and the Renewal of Higher Education at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Join us to hear C.L. Max Nikias discuss his book American Trojan, he captivating story of a refugee who lost everything and then rebuilt it all, an immigrant who defied the odds and achieved the American Dream; a visionary technologist who transformed the University of Southern California into one of the nation’s most prestigious private research universities.

At a time when many universities have succumbed to ideology over truth, under Nikias’s leadership, USC retained its academic integrity in the face of high-stakes negotiations, high-rolling donors, and the profound challenges of modern leadership.

Hailing from a humble village on the island of Cyprus, Nikias steeped in thousands of years of history as he grew up. But when the Turkish invasion of 1974 destroyed everything his family had built, he came to America to see what the Land of Opportunity had to offer.

Upon completion of his graduate engineering studies, he embarked on an academic career that established him as a pioneer in digital signal analysis, lead him to collaborate on military projects with the U.S. Navy, and eventually led him to USC, which would forever alter the trajectory of his career and life.

Against this dramatic backdrop, American Trojan offers candid insights into how Nikias’ bold vision transformed USC into one of America’s most elite universities. More than a personal story, it is a blueprint for leadership, offering insights into how Nikias and his team strategized to meet formidable challenges to USC.

An urgent examination of higher education’s current crisis, American Trojan provides a roadmap for renewal, offering specific recommendations for how universities can reclaim their true mission of transmitting knowledge and cultivating young minds.

Where: Vroman’s

Date: Saturday, the 13^th

Time: 3 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-06-13/cl-max-nikias

Community in Conversation: Banished Citizens (Event 1 of 3) at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Our community is still being stalked, threatened, and attacked, our family members, friends, coworkers, acquaintances are being kidnapped, but this isn’t the first time in California’s history that this has happened.

Cellar Door Bookstore will be partnering with the Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California to host another installment of our Community in Conversation series, this time on Marla A. Ramírez’s extremely timely book, Banished Citizens: A History of the Mexican American Women Who Endured Repatriation. The discussion will be led by Cellar Door friend, journalist, and co-author of the award-winning book, Mexican American Baseball in the South Bay, Ron Gonzales.

There will be two meetings about the book to give folks options to partake in the conversation. The first opportunity is on Saturday, June 13th at 5:00 pm. (Event 1 of 3) And the second is on Tuesday, June 23rd at 1:00 pm for those who prefer daytime events. (Event 2 of 3) Feel free to come to either meeting, or join in both conversations!

The Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California will then host their own panel and Q&A there on Saturday, July 25th at 11:00am (Event 3 of 3). Banished Citizens author Marla A. Ramírez will be at the panel as well!

About Banished Citizens: A moving portrait of a grim period in American immigration history, when approximately one million ethnic Mexicans—mostly women and children who were US citizens—were forced to relocate across the southern border. From 1921 to 1944, approximately one million ethnic Mexicans living in the United States were removed across the border to Mexico. What officials called “repatriation” was in fact banishment: 60 percent of those expelled were US citizens, mainly working-class women and children whose husbands and fathers were Mexican immigrants. Drawing on oral histories, transnational archival sources, and private collections, Marla A. Ramírez illuminates the lasting effects of coerced mass removal on three generations of ethnic Mexicans.

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

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

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 5:30 pm – 7 pm

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

Our special guest feature this month is @kinokono_inaka!

Micah Tasaka (田坂舞花) is a queer, Japanese American poet and community organizer from Colton, California. They are the author of Expansions (Jamii Publishing, 2017). They are an MFA student in poetry at the University of New Orleans and Associate Poetry Editor at Bayou. Micah currently works with RPYA as the director of the Wellness Center, an LGBTQ+ youth drop-in space in San Bernardino, California.

Where: Café con Libros, Pomona

Date: Saturday the 13^th

Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm

Address: 280 W. 2^nd St., Pomona, CA 91766

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: Sunday the 14^th

Time: 11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: Event Page

Hermanos y Libros Book Festival: Zine and Vision Board Making at Junior High LA – In-Person Event

Join us at our Hermosa y Libros Book Festival and get creative at our Zine & Vision Board Making station!

Not only do we have FREE books, panels, and vendors, BUT we also have a list of awesome activities happening throughout the day. Come learn how to make zines of your very own or participate in creating your own vision board to map out your dreams! This is the perfect space to make new friends, collaborate, and create.

Co-hosted by: Sofia Aguilar & Celeste Alyssa Gomez!

RSVP at link in bio

Where: Junior High

Date: Sunday the 14^th

Time: 12 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: Instagram Page

Cellar Door Book Club: Small Things Like These at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Participants will discuss Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan.

Claire Keegan works magic in this small novel about a truly good man in 1985 Ireland, and the difficult decision he faces at Christmastime. Keegan captures the extraordinary courage required to live an ordinary life with honor.

Small Things Like These is award-winning author Claire Keegan’s landmark new novel, a tale of one man’s courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family.

It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

Claire Keegan’s works of fiction are internationally acclaimed and have been translated into thirty languages. Antarctica won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Walk the Blue Fields won the Edge Hill Prize for the finest collection of stories published in the British Isles. Foster won the Davy Byrnes Award—the world’s richest prize for a short story. Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Rathbones Folio Prize. It won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and The Kerry Prize for Irish Novel of the Year. She was awarded Woman of the Year for Literature in Ireland, 2022, and Author of the Year, 2023

Where: Cellar Door Bookstore

Date: Sunday the 14^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

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

Website: https://cellardoorbookstore.com/event/2026-06-14/cellar-door-book-club-small-things-these

Better Future Book Club: What If We Get It Right? at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event

Join participants to discuss What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.

Where: North Figueroa Bookshop

Date: Sunday the 14^th

Time: 2 pm – 3:30 pm

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

Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-998ab355-ee48-493c-bb5c-1f735018965e:

Middle Grade Book Club: Song for a Whale 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 June is Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly.

This book is the award-winning and USA Today bestselling story of a deaf girl’s connection to a whale whose song can’t be heard by his species, and the journey she takes to help him.

From fixing the class computer to repairing old radios, twelve-year-old Iris is a tech genius. But she’s the only deaf person in her school, so people often treat her like she’s not very smart. If you’ve ever felt like no one was listening to you, then you know how hard that can be.

Full of heart and poignancy, this affecting story by sign language interpreter Lynne Kelly shows how a little determination can make big waves.

Our 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.

Where: Village Well Books & Coffee

Date: Sunday the 14^th

Time: 2 pm – 3 pm

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

Website: Event Page

Hear Me Out: June Workshop & Open Mic by Ravina, featuring KERM and Carter Kane at KUBO LB – In-Person Event

Join us for a powerful Sunday afternoon of poetry, creative expression, featured artists, book signings, a workshop & open mic. HEAR ME OUT invites participants to reflect, release, and express through writing, storytelling, music, and community. Through guided prompts, featured artists, and an open mic, this shared experience encourages all attendees to speak freely about identity, pressure, healing, vulnerability, and the realities often left unsaid. This space is open to all and honors men’s mental health month! Doors open 2:30 pm.

Our Poetry Workshop portion is an immersive experience with guided writing prompts and mindfulness, followed by a featured artist showcase and open mic.

Hosted by RAVINA. Don’t miss out!

Where: KUBO LB

Date: Sunday the 14^th

Time: 3 pm – 5 pm

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

Website: Eventbrite Page

Ticketed Event: Andrew Sean Greer, with Jason Blitman, & Villa Coco at Book Soup Off-site at First Congregational Church of Los Angeles – In-Person Event

Andrew Sean Greer, in conversation with Jason Blitman, will discuss Villa Coco.

Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less, showcases his wit, sophistication, and deep knowledge of focaccia in this magical and madcap tale of a young man who takes an unspecified job with a charismatic, elderly Baronessa at her crumbling villa in the Tuscan hills.

Broke and directionless, our young man (the chosen moniker of Villa Coco’s narrator) takes a job in the Italian countryside as the all-purpose assistant (technically, the employment and asked for “adjutant”) to Lisabetta, known to her friends as Coco, a strong-willed, wealthy widow of great local renown. Technically, our young man is an archivist, charged with cataloguing Coco’s extensive and eclectic collection of art and artifacts, but what are his actual duties? He is charged with ridding the house of a marten, whatever that is, locating the antediluvian septic system, entertaining an endless carousel of guests (from bohemian painters to elderly princesses to handsome nephews), attending a funeral in order to make off with the urn, and not inadvertently sabotaging Coco’s great and final plan—to locate the lost love of her life and be reunited before it’s too late.

Told with the signature wit, insight, and deeply felt humanity that made Less an international phenomenon, Villa Coco is a dazzling, sun-soaked ode to life itself—a romp through a youthfully self-constructed emotional obstacle course, a meditation on what we give and take from others, and a bawdy Mediterranean ballad about becoming who you’ve always wanted to be.

Andrew Sean Greer is the bestselling author of seven works of fiction, including Pulitzer Prize winner Less and its companion Less Is Lost. He is the recipient of the Northern California Book Award, the California Book Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, the O. Henry award for short fiction, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Public Library. Greer lives in Venice.

Jason Blitman is an arts producer and the host of Gays Reading, a podcast featuring conversations with writers, artists, and cultural figures. Guests have included Stacey Abrams, Fredrik Backman, S.A. Cosby, Roxane Gay, John Irving, Dylan Mulvaney, Rosie O’Donnell, Ann Patchett, V.E. Schwab, and Jonathan Van Ness. Jason moderates author events nationwide and has produced major literary gatherings including the Books That Changed My Life Festival in New York City and the Palm Springs Book Festival. He also directs and produces theatre across Southern California. Learn more at jasonblitman.com and gaysreading.com.

This is a ticketed event through Eventbrite and will take place at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, located at 540 S. Commonwealth Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90020

Where: First Congregational Church of Los Angeles

Date: Sunday the 14^th

Time: 4 pm

Address: 540 S. Commonwealth Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90020

Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-06-14/ticketed-event-andrew-sean-greer

Goats & Ghosts Book Fair at Mt. Lowe Brewing Company – In-Person Event

A family-friendly creepy book fair with goats!

The Undead Bookshop, Underdog Bookshop, Black Cat Fables, and Moonstone & Mist Bookshop are teaming up to bring you a multi-shop family-friendly book fair with goats!

We will be joined by animals from Little Zoo, horror and thriller authors (full list coming soon), and amazing vendors (full list coming soon).

Where: Mt. Lowe Brewing Company

Date: Sunday the 14^th

Time: 5 pm – 8 pm

Address: 150 E. St. Joseph St., Arcadia, CA 91006

Website: Eventbrite Page

Where: The Studio at St. Denis Building

Date: Sunday the 14^th

Time: 5 pm – 7 pm

Address: 3433 Cahuenga Blvd. West, Los Angeles, CA 90068

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

A Conversation with Georgia K, Boone and Jennifer Joyner at Bel Canto Books KUBO LB – In-Person Event

Bel Canto Books is delighted to host a conversation with Georgia K. Boone author of When We Almost Came Undone, in conversation with Jazmine Joyner (Devour).

Georgia K. Boone is the USA Today Bestselling author of I’ll Be Gone for Christmas and the author of two critically acclaimed YA novels. When she’s not writing, she’s playing video games and annoying her dogs. She lives with her family in Los Angeles.

Jazmine Joyner (They/Them) is a writer & editor. They consume copious amounts of books, television, and movies; All while writing furiously during the day.

Where: Bel Canto Books, KUBO LB

Date: Sunday the 14^th

Time: 6 pm – 8 pm

Address: 3976 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach, CA 90026

Website: Withfriends Page

Library Girl Reading Series: Punk Hostage Press Confidential Reading at The Ruskin Group Theater – In-Person Event

Join us for Punk Hostage Press Confidential, curated by Susan Hayden and Iris Berry.

Celebrating 14 years of publishing and the release of Nicca Ray’s Love & Cigarettes: a Hollywood Mother-Daughter Story.

Readings by 13 guests and music by KOOPS.

See website link for details.

RSVP: Tickets $20

Where: Ruskin Theater Group

Date: Sunday the 14^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: 2800 Airport Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90405

Website: https://theatre-map.com/show/ruskin-library-girl

June Fantasy Romance Book Club: House of Crimson Hearts at The Ripped Bodice LA – In-Person Event

Join us for the Fantasy Romance book club discussion of House of Crimson Hearts by author Ruby Roe. This meeting will be led by bookseller Grace and everyone is welcome.

RSVP

Where: The Ripped Bodice, LA

Date: Sunday the 14^th

Time: 7:15 pm

Address: 3806 Main St., Culver City, CA, 90323

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

Poetik LA: Community Art & Poetry at The Hyperion – In-Person Event

Join host Austin Alexander every 2^nd Sunday of the month for Poetik LA, an all level donation-based event.

All themes are merely suggestions.

See site for this month’s details.

$10 donation

Where: Poetik LA

Date: Sunday the 14^th

Time: 8 pm

Address: 2930 Hyperion, Silver Lake, CA

Website: Instagram Page