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: Monday the 29th
Time: 9 am – 10 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com
Panel Event: Relationship Advice from Romance Authors at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
What can romance novels teach us about real relationships? Join romcom author and relationship coach, Allison Raskin (Save the Date), as she discusses what we can learn (and unlearn) from the romance genre with fellow authors Ash Perez (Speak Now) and Elissa Sussman (Funny You Should Ask;Totally and Completely Fine).
Allison Raskin is a New York Times bestselling author, relationship coach, and mental health advocate, in addition to being an accomplished screenwriter and content creator. Her debut romcom, Save the Date, was published in 2025 and her follow up, Compulsively Yours, is set to release in December, 2026.
Elissa Sussman is the bestselling author of Totally and Completely Fine, Once More with Feeling, Funny You Should Ask, and three young adult novels. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their many pets.
Ash Perez (he/they) is a writer, director, author, and producer. A queer first-generation Cuban, Korean, and Filipino American himself, Ash is focused on telling underrepresented stories in every genre. He has written for ABC’s Home Economics and Freeform’s Good Trouble. Most recently he created New Guy Tries for 2nd Try TV, which follows his exploration of manhood as a newly-transitioned man. Speak Now is his fiction debut.
Relationship questions from the audience are encouraged!
Tickets: $10 available at website link
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Wednesday the 1st
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 29th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 92501
Website: Facebook Page
P.C. Verrone, with Natashia Deón, & Rabbit, Fox, Tar at Book Soup – In-Person Event
P.C. Verrone, in conversation with Natashia Deón, will discuss Rabbit, Fox, Tar: A Novel.
A mesmerizing, fable-like debut novel about a mysterious young Black woman whose arrival in an insular neighborhood threatens to shake its foundations.
When Baby appears in Original Hill, her name is on everyone’s lips. A young Black woman is a rare sight in this part of town, and she sits all day on the Foxes’ garden wall, swinging her bare feet and speaking to no one. That is, until the charismatic Lucius “Lucky” Foote comes along and touches her, sparking their romance. Arm-in-arm with Baby, who seems to exert a seemingly supernatural pull on the other residents, Lucky is confident he will secure the open city council seat away from Baby’s uncle Eugene Fox, the back-from-retirement white incumbent.
With protestors reopening old wounds around the Black neighborhood that was leveled by the nearby highway decades ago and Lucky threatening his position, Fox believes it’s not just a city council seat at stake, but the “soul” of Original Hill.
As Baby is woven further into the unraveling community, she begins to stray from Fox’s strict rules and question everything, from where she came from to who—and what—she truly is.
P.C. Verrone’s work has appeared in FIYAH, PodCastle, Nightmare, and numerous anthologies. He has been a Tin House Resident, a Playwrights’ Center Fellow, and a WNDB Black Creatives Revisions Workshop winner. He graduated from Harvard College and holds an MFA in creative writing from Rutgers University–Newark. He lives in Dallas with his husband, a historian.
Natashia Deón is an NAACP Image Award Nominee, practicing criminal attorney, and college professor. A Pamela Krasney Moral Courage Fellow, Deón is the author of the critically acclaimed debut novel, Grace, which was named a Best Book by The New York Times. She is also the author of The Perishing, a nominee for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards in Fiction. Deón has been awarded fellowships by PEN America, Prague Summer Program for Writers, Dickinson House in Belgium, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Monday the 29th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 W. Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-06-29/pc-verrone
Books and Brews Book Club: Ruins at Culture Brewing Co. – In-Person Event.
Books and Brews Book Club participants will discuss Ruins by author Lily Brooks-Salton.
From the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of The Light Pirate comes a powerful, deeply resonant novel about an ambitious archaeologist in pursuit of a rare artifact from an ancient civilization that would not only change her life but potentially society at large.
NOTE: Ticket includes copy of the book and one beer or soft drink.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Monday the 29th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 327 Manhattan Beach Blvd., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2026-06-29/books-and-brews-book-club
Book Event: Emily Varga, with Victoria Aveyard and Tina Mars, & The River She Became at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event.
Join us to discuss The River She Became, with author Emily Varga, in conversation with Victoria Aveyard and Tina Mars.
A book signing will follow with the authors. This ticketed event includes the hardcover special edition of the book and pre-order swag.
The River She Became is a high-stakes, action-packed romantasy where a relic-hunter searches for an ancient fae object to restore the magic to her world, but must learn to trust her own powers—and her heart.
I’m going across the River. And I’m going to save us all.
Yaseema is a brilliant scholar and loyal servant of the Empire—or so they think. By day, she catalogs the fae relics of her conquered kingdom. But by night, she reclaims the artefacts in secret to restore magic to her dying land.
Until she finds the long-lost key to cross the River into the fae world and save her people. But a ruthless realm awaits her there, ruled by monsters wearing beautiful skin—especially the cold-eyed captain who sees through her lies. But even he isn’t what he seems—under the guise of upholding a cruel regime, he works to overthrow it from the inside. To succeed, he needs the same lost relic Yaseema seeks: the crown of an ancient Fae Queen.
With magic that is a mystery even to her, Yaseema can help him find the crown and save his family from a fate worse than death. Unless she steals it first to help her own.
To survive, they must work together to outwit ancient curses, battle creatures born of nightmares, and find a power that could resurrect their worlds. But as secrets unravel and loyalties blur, they face the greatest danger of all: losing their heart to each other.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Monday the 29th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 3806 Main St., Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://therippedbodice.com/event/2026-06-29/emily-varga-la-event-river-she-became
Krista Diamond, with Ruth Madievsky, & Close Relationships with Strangers at Skylight – In-Person Event
Krista Diamond, in conversation with Ruth Madievsky, will discuss Close Relationships with Strangers: A Novel.
Close Relationships with Strangers follows a Las Vegas wildlife photographer who moves to Los Angeles to become a paparazzo and in the process loses his relationships, his morals, and eventually his tether to reality.
Reviled by celebrities and the public, Ben is one of the last remaining paparazzi scouring the streets of Los Angeles. Amateurs with camera phones, social media, and a lack of bonafide stars have slowly killed a once essential role in the Hollywood apparatus. Jack Whitlock is one of the last remaining A-listers, and Ben has followed his career since the years he spent bussing tables at a diner in Las Vegas where his most popular movie once filmed a scene.
When Jack Whitlock is suddenly embroiled in a sex scandal, Ben begins his pursuit, eager for both a big paycheck and a chance to be close to the elusive star. Along the way, he is haunted by mistakes from his past: the photos he took of a pop star that have led to death threats, the ghost of his failed relationship with a burlesque dancer named Ellory, and his abandoned dream of being a wildlife photographer.
Searing and propulsive, Close Relationships with Strangers is a behind the lens tour-de-force through the streets of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and the desert in between, as readers follow Ben, unrelenting, obsessive, and wry, on a quest that will lead either to his redemption or demise.
Krista Diamond’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The New York Times, The Paris Review, Cosmopolitan, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and her work has been supported by Bread Loaf, Tin House, and the Nevada Arts Council. She lives in Las Vegas. Close Relationships with Strangers is her debut novel.
Ruth Madievsky is the author of national bestselling novel, All-Night Pharmacy, winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction, the National Jewish Book Award for Debut Fiction, and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction. Her writing appears in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, The Cut, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles, where she works as a clinical pharmacist.
Where: Skylight
Date: Monday the 29th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Charles O’Malley and Scott W. Stern, & Shakespear’s Margaret at Vroman’s Off-site at Pasadena Playhouse – In-Person Event
Charles O’Malley and Scott W. Stern will present and discuss Shakespear’s Margaret: The Dramatic Life of a Warrior Queen.
She is more violent than Lady Macbeth, more complex than Ophelia, more strategic than King Lear’s daughters. She is the only Shakespearean character, male or female, whose entire life—from youth to old age—appears on stage. She is a wealth of insight into Shakespeare’s understanding of, and influence on, ideas of gender and sexuality, and she speaks by far the most lines of any of his female characters. She has allowed the likes of Peggy Ashcroft, Helen Mirren, and Sophie Okonedo full range for their stunning talents. Yet today, most audiences have still never heard of Margaret of Anjou.
But who was Margaret? In the fifteenth century, she was a fourteen-year-old French princess married to an English king, soon thrust into command amid a bloody civil war. A hundred and fifty years later, she was resurrected on the Elizabethan stage in four of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3 and Richard III.
And in every era since the Bard’s, actors, directors, and producers have recast their own Margaret, slicing, dicing, and rearranging the original Shakespeare to highlight or diminish Margaret’s role depending on the sensibilities of the time. It is this evolution of Margaret’s portrayal that Charles O’Malley and Scott W. Stern track in Shakespeare’s Margaret, from Elizabethan boy-actors in wigs enacting misogynist fears of witchy women to feminist celebrations of Margaret’s uninhibited grasp of power and clever commentaries on global politics and world leaders such as Margaret Thatcher. Her story, as it has changed over the centuries across the page and on the stage, brings to life the evolution of theatre and shows how Shakespeare’s plays have always been living collaborations among actors, directors, writers, critics, and history itself, still unfolding.
Where: Pasadena Playhouse
Date: Monday the 29th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-06-29/charles-omalley-scott-w-stern
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 29th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)
Website: Free Workshop Page
Joy Frequencies: Poetry Show with Live Band at Bar Covell – In-Person Event
Joy Frequencies is a super fun poetry show hosted by Derrick C. Brown and Llnda Ravenswood.
Olivia Gatwood is a poet, writer, activist, speaker, and educator on topics that include sexual assault prevention and recovery. Gatwood was a finalist at Brave New Voices, Women of the World and the National Poetry Slam. Her performances have been featured on HBO, Huffington Post, MTV, VH1, and BBC among others.
Jennifer Lewis is an American actress and singer. She began her career appearing in Broadway musicals and worked as a back-up singer for Bette Midler before appearing in films Beaches (1988) and Sister Act (1992). Lewis is known for playing roles of mothers in the films What’s Love Got to Do With It (1993), Poetic Justice (1993), The Preacher’s Wife (1996), The Brothers (2001), The Cookout (2004), Think Like a Man (2012) and in the sequel Think Like a Man Too (2014), Baggage Claim (2013) and The Wedding Ringer (2015), as well as in The Temptations miniseries (1998).
Karla Lamb is a multidisciplinary Chicana poet, with work in A Women’s Thing Magazine, The Shallow Ends, Yes Poetry, Word Riot, Coal Hill Review, Fine Print Press, & translated in Revista La Peste among others.
Music: antidated records
Where: Bar Covell
Date: Monday the 29th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 4628 Hollywood Blvd. Hollywood, CA 90028
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: Tuesday the 30th
Time: 10 am – 11 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Virtual Book Club: The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club via La Crescenta 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 4: June 30: Chapters 37 – 49 — Pages 229 to the end of the book.
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 30th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16603405
Book and Movie Club: The Hunger Games at Lancaster Library, LACL – In-Person Teen Event
Join us for our first Teen Summer Book and Movie Club! This month’s selection is The Hunger Games. Pick up a free copy of the book in the Young Adult section while supplies last. Part of Summer Discovery Program. For teens ages 13 – 17.
Turn in your book club handout by June 30 for a chance to enter an opportunity drawing, then join us that day to watch the movie adaptation.
Rated PG-13: Parents Strongly Cautioned – Some Material May Be Inappropriate for Children Under 13.
Where: Lancaster Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 30th
Time: 3:30 pm – 6 pm
Address: 601 W. Lancaster Blvd., Lancaster, CA 93534
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16453032
Lomita Book Club: A Moveable Feast at Lomita Library, LACL – In-Person Event
This month we’ll explore A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway. This classic posthumous memoir explores Hemingway’s time as a struggling writer in 1920s’ Paris. There, he meets a cast of characters who all share similar dreams of success. For adults.
This book explores relationships, gossip, the Lost Generation, and harnessing creative energy from the source.
Limited copies of the book are available to check out at the library.
Where: Lomita Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 30th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 24200 Narbonne Ave., Lomita, CA 90717
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16448623
Iacobani Library Book Club: West with Giraffes at Iacobani Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join us for our monthly book club! This month we’ll be discussing West With Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge. Copies of the book will be available at the customer service desk. This program is for adults.
Where: Iacobani Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 30th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 4990 Clark Ave., Lakewood, CA 90712
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16481546
LGBTQ+ Book Club: Angles in America at West Hollywood Library, LACL – In-Person & Online Hybrid LGBTQ+ Event
Join the LGBTQ+ Book Club for a hybrid (in-person and online) discussion of Angels in America by Tony Kushner. For adults.
This is a hybrid event and will be hosted in-person in the West Hollywood Library Community Meeting Room as well as on Zoom. Please register at the link below to receive the link to the meeting via email.
https://library-lacounty-gov.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0pd-Goqz4uGNNbzVuW720zsRrGxTK1VeLG
West Hollywood Library’s LGBTQ+ Book Club meets on the last Tuesday of the month to discuss literary works of relevance and interest to the LGBTQ+ community.
Please contact the library to borrow a print copy of the book. eBook is available through Libby app/OverDrive as well as hoopla digital (no wait) and downloadable audiobook is available through Libby app/OverDrive.
A play in two parts, Angels in America is a complex and insightful look into identity, community, justice, and redemption. New Yorkers grapple with life and death, love and sex, and heaven and hell as the AIDS crisis intensifies during a time of political reaction—the Reagan Republican counterrevolution of the 1980s.
Where: West Hollywood Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 30th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/15778093
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 30th
Time: 7 pm – 10 pm
Address: 14537 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
Website: Instagram Page
Julia Bianco, with Dahlia De La Vega, & Witch Season (Broken Coven #1) at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Join us to welcome Julai Bianco, in conversation with Dahlia De La Vega, to discuss Witch Season (Broken Coven #1).
Exhilarating, dangerous, and seductive, Witch Season is an action-packed and fiercely romantic contemporary fantasy from debut author and screenwriter Julia Bianco.
That is the price of magic-not just the blood, but the pain to bring it out.
Katherine Barnes is an enforcer, charged with upholding the rules of the notorious Los Angeles-based Aestas coven. It’s her job to maintain order and bring unsettled witches-people who aren’t aware they have magic until it explodes out of them in a catastrophic burst-into the coven’s fold. As a former unsettled witch, Katherine owes her life to Sylvia Page, coven leader and silver-haired rebel who founded Aestas years ago.
When Silas Khatri, heir to Noctis, the most powerful coven in the world, arrives to take Aestas to task for some of their more unconventional practices, Katherine’s dislike for him reaches blistering levels. She hates his money, his good looks, his coven’s dangerous attitude towards unsettled witches. She can absolutely overlook that he sets her off in more ways than one.
But a powerful threat is about to rise. Stronger than any one coven. More insidious than the decades-long power struggle that exists in the hidden witch world. One that will pull Katherine and Silas together despite their differences. And one that will lead to an all-out war.
Dahlia De La Vega is the LA-based content creator and interviewer behind ofpagesandprint on social media. She can be found moderating book events at bookstores and festivals; hosting her monthly book club, Musings of the Nine; and chatting about her favorite reads on Instagram.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday the 30th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-06-30/julia-bianco
Mary Clare Jalonick, with Jason Dearon, & Storm at the Capitol: an Oral History of January 6th at Chevalier’s – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Mary Clare Jalonick, in conversation with Jason Dearon, to discuss Storm at the Capitol: an Oral History of January 6th.
Timed for the five-year anniversary of the event, Storm at the Capitol paints the most vivid, terrifying, and human portrait yet of the January 6th attack. Join us for a conversation with Associated Press Congressional reporter Mary Clare Jalonick and Jason Dearen, Associated Press national investigative reporter based in Los Angeles.
As a Congressional reporter for the Associated Press, Mary Clare Jalonick was in the Capitol building on January 6th, 2021, to cover the certification of Joe Biden’s victory after he was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election. The normally peaceful process was disrupted that day by a stunning, violent, and unprecedented attack at the center of American government.
In this book Mary Clare Jalonick presents a definitive and unbiased account of the hours leading up to, during, and just after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Drawing on original interviews, key documents, and never-before-published transcripts and oral histories, Jalonick documents the astonishing chain of events as told by the rioters; the police who fought them; the lawmakers who fled the violence; and the staff, workers, and reporters who were there that day, including Jalonick herself.
Through these many perspectives, Storm at the Capitol details each unfolding hour as lawmakers and first responders begin to realize the inevitability of violence from the approaching crowds, and Trump’s supporters-turned-rioters, after hearing the president speak in front of the White House, breach the first barriers around the Capitol. As the day progresses, the people inside the building hide and barricade themselves inside offices and closets, while security officials and police officers scramble to respond and are beaten bloody as they try to defend the building. Their stories—some of which have never been shared before—reveal the extent of the violence and fear that pervaded the Capitol that day.
Nothing in the last century has shattered the peace at the Capitol and posed such a direct threat to American democracy as the January 6th attack. Unlike previous national traumas that have pulled the country together, the siege has only further divided Americans and their representatives in Washington. The attack left at least five people dead, and more than 100 police officers injured, and yet many defend the rioters as peaceful. While some may try to obscure the facts of what happened that day, the people in this book tell the story firsthand, for history.
Mary Clare Jalonick covers Congress for The Associated Press, where she has worked for two decades. She has covered politics and policy under five presidents and reported from inside the Capitol on January 6th. She lives in the Washington, DC, area.
Jason Dearen, is a national investigative reporter (AP, PBS FRONTLINE, ABC News) based in Los Angeles.
Where: Chevalier’s
Date: Tuesday the 30th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 133 Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Feral Girl Summer: Kill for Love Paperback Launch with Laura Picklesimer and Guests at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Laura Picklesimer, in conversation with Veronica Bane and Sarah Langan, discuss Kill for Love, atthe paperback launch.
RSVP
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Tuesday the 30th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Nonfiction Book club: Indigenous Continent: The Epic Quest for North America at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to discuss this month’s selection Indigenous Continent: The Epic Quest for North America by Pekka Hämäläinen. Facilitated by Mark Polak.
A prize-winning scholar rewrites 400 years of American history from Indigenous perspectives, overturning the dominant origin story of the United States.
There is an old, deeply rooted story about America that goes like this: Columbus “discovers” a strange continent and brings back tales of untold riches. The European empires rush over, eager to stake out as much of this astonishing “New World” as possible. Though Indigenous peoples fight back, they cannot stop the onslaught. White imperialists are destined to rule the continent, and history is an irreversible march toward Indigenous destruction.
Yet as with other long-accepted origin stories, this one, too, turns out to be based in myth and distortion.In Indigenous Continent, acclaimed historian Pekka Hämäläinen presents a sweeping counternarrative that shatters the most basic assumptions about American history.
By 1776, various colonial powers claimed nearly all of the continent, but Indigenous peoples still controlled it—as Hämäläinen points out, the maps in modern textbooks that paint much of North America in neat, color-coded blocks confuse outlandish imperial boasts for actual.
holdings. In fact, Native power peaked in the late nineteenth century, with the Lakota victory in 1876 at Little Big Horn, which was not an American blunder, but an all-too-expected outcome.
Hämäläinen ultimately contends that the very notion of “colonial America” is misleading, and that we should speak instead of an “Indigenous America” that was only slowly and unevenly becoming colonial. The evidence of Indigenous defiance is apparent today in the hundreds of Native nations that still dot the United States and Canada. Necessary reading for anyone who cares about America’s past, present, and future, Indigenous Continent restores Native peoples to their rightful place at the very fulcrum of American history.
Pekka Hämäläinen is Rhodes Professor of American History at the University of Oxford and the author of The Comanche Empire, winner of the Bancroft Prize, and Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power. He lives in Oxford, England.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 30th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2026-06-30/nonfiction-book-club
At Skylight: Natalie Adler, with Jakc Lowrey, & Waiting on a Friend at Skylight – In-Person Event
New York City, East Village, 1984. A young woman with the power to see the ghosts of her friends is haunted by the one who refuses to return—a dazzling, big-hearted debut of friendship and community during a time of devastation and defiance.
Renata is a young dyke-about-town who can see ghosts, something she’s doing more of lately as too many of her friends are dying of a new, terrifying disease. When Renata’s best friend Mark dies of complications from AIDS, Renata is devastated by the loss of the person she loved most in the world. And to her disappointment and increasing despair, Mark seems unwilling or unable to return for the proper goodbye they both were denied.
While Renata waits anxiously for Mark, she must stay vigilant: a mysterious, police-like force has begun ridding their East Village neighborhood of anything abnormal or inexplicable. What first seems like a scam reveals itself to be far more sinister, targeting the soul of Renata’s community. With her band of lovably eccentric pals and lovers, Renata is determined to fight back against the erasure of her friends’ memories and the sanitizing of her beloved New York. But haunting her every step is Mark, the one ghost who stubbornly refuses to reappear.
Both heartbreaking and healing, tragic and triumphant, Waiting on a Friend is a magical retelling of queer history and a celebration of youth and camaraderie. With pathos and humor, empathy and an edge, Natalie Adler freshly reimagines the past for a new generation, reclaiming the spirit of resistance and determination that would become one of the era’s defining legacies.
Natalie Adler has an MFA in Fiction from Brooklyn College and a PhD in Comparative Literature from Brown University. She was a Susan Kamil Emerging Writer Fellow at the Center for Fiction and is an editor at Lux magazine. She is from New Jersey and lives in New York City.
Jack Lowery is the author of It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic (Bold Type Books), a book about the artist collective Gran Fury, and the work they produced in conjunction with ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful was named an Editors’ Choice by the New York Times Book Review and was shortlisted for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize. His essays and articles have appeared in publications such as The Atlantic, Art in America, BOMB, The Times Literary Supplement, LitHub and The Awl. He has taught in the MFA Writing Program and the Undergraduate Writing Program at Columbia University. As an editor, he has published the poetry of David Wojnarowicz. His second book, Indecent and Obscene: How America Lost Its Arts Funding, is forthcoming from Haymarket.
Where: Skylight
Date: Tuesday the 30th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-natalie-adler-presents-waiting-friend
One City, One Story: Laila Lalami & The Dream Hotel (Paperback Release) at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Laila Lalami will present and discuss The Dream Hotel: A Novel (paperback release).
Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.
The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.
Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.
RSVP at website link.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday the 30th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-06-30/laila-lalami
Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rick Lupert & Guest: NO READING THIS DATE – Online Zoom Event
Cobalt Poets Reading & Open Mic will have NO READING THIS DATE.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: Event Page
DiPiazza’s Open Mic at Di Piazza’s Pizza – In-Person Event
Open Mic Every Tuesday! Signups 8:30 pm, late-night happy hour, live music, pizza & cocktails.
Unleash your talent! Every Tuesday, DiPiazza’s hosts an open mic for music, comedy, and more. Signups start at 8:30 pm: bring your guitar, jokes, poetry, or whatever you’ve got! Enjoy a late-night happy hour with great deals, plus delicious pizza and creative cocktails in Long Beach’s legendary live music spot (family-owned since 1984).
Often follows Trivia Night at 6pm for a full evening of fun.
No cover mentioned—come early to grab a spot!
Step up to the mic and shine!
Where: Di Piazza’s
Date: Tuesday, the 30th
Time: 8:30 pm
Address: 5205 Pacific Coast Hwy., Long Beach, CA
Website: Eventbrite Page
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 30th
Time: 9 pm – 11 pm (Doors at 8:15 pm)
Address: 4276 Crenshaw Blvd., Leimert Park, CA 90008
PARKING:
Street parking: Crenshaw and Degnan
Parking Lot: 3416 W 43rd St Leimert Park, Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: Instagram Page
Lit Angels: Morning Writing with Francesca Lia Block at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Do you want to find creative inspiration and overcome writer’s block in a supportive and peaceful community setting? Are you interested in writing professionally or for personal growth and healing but unsure where to begin?
Come join acclaimed author and writing instructor Francesca Lia Block for a brief intro and 40 minutes of free writing on any topic without judgement. Afterwards, you will be able to share a bit about your process and ask Francesca questions about your writing.
Francesca Lia Block is the author of more than thirty books of fiction, non-fiction, short stories, and poetry, and has written screenplay adaptations of her work. She received the Spectrum Award, the Phoenix Award, the ALA Rainbow Award and the 2005 Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as other citations from the American Library Association, and from the NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, and PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY. Currently she teaches creative writing at UCLA Extension, Antioch University, Pocket MFA, and numerous workshops across the country. Francesca also edits LIT ANGELS, a literary journal available on Substack. Her latest novel is House of Hearts now out in paperback. https://www.francescaliablock.com/
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Wednesday the 1st
Time: 9 am – 10 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Book Party Book Club: Everyone Here Is Lying at San Dimas Senior Center – In-Person Event
Join us for a lively discussion of the novel Everyone Here Is Lying by Shari Lapena. Copies are available for check out at the La Verne Library circulation desk. For Adults
William Wooler is a family man, on the surface. But he’s been having an affair, an affair that ended horribly this afternoon at a motel up the road. So, when he returns to his house, devastated and angry, to find his difficult nine-year-old daughter, Avery, unexpectedly home from school, William loses his temper. Hours later, Avery’s family declares her missing. Who took Avery Wooler?
Copies are available for check out in the branch or on your mobile device as an e-book/e-audiobook.
Where: San Dimas Senior Center
Date: Wednesday the 1st
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Address: 201 E. Bonita Ave., San Dimas, CA
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16470285
Afternoon Book Club: The Emperor of Gladness 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 discuss The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong.
Where: Westlake Village Library
Date: Wednesday the 1st
Time: 12 pm – 1 pm
Address: 31220 W. Oak Crest Dr., Westlake Village, CA 91361
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16566939
Book Club: The Berry Pickers at Chatsworth Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us for a discussion of this month’s book, The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters.
A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a mystery that will haunt the survivors, unravel a family, and remain unsolved for nearly fifty years.
Where: Chatworth Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 1st
Time: 1:30 pm
Address: 21025 Devonshire St., Chatsworth, CA 91311
Website: https://www.lapl.org/events/book-club-30
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 2nd Monday of the month on KPFK Los Angeles 90.7 FM.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: KPFK 90.7 FM
Date: Wednesday, the 1st
Time: 2 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: On-air Event
Website: https://www.kpfk.org/on-air/poets-cafe/
Classics Book Club: It Can’t Happen Here at East Los Angeles Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join our Classics Book Club to discuss It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. Copies of the novel are available at the library.
Synopsis: A surveyor arrives in a remote village and is subject to a harrowing bureaucratic nightmare. On the 100th anniversary of the publication of this novel and the 100th anniversary of Central Library, the book club will be examining this novel’s dystopian elements.
Where: East Los Angeles Library,LACL
Date: Wednesday the 1st
Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm
Address: 4837 E. 3rd St., Los Angeles, CA 90022
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16703360
Creative Writing Workshop With Tony DuShane at Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us for a free writer’s workshop presented by UCLA instructor Tony DuShane, screenwriter of the film Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk, based on his novel of the same name. This workshop is open to adults only.
Where: Los Feliz Branch Library,LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 1st
Time: 6 pm
Address: 1874 Hillhurst Ave,, Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.lapl.org/events/creative-writing-workshop-tony-dushane-16
Social Meetup & Open Mic with Sean Hill at Au Lac, DTLA – In-Person Event
Plant Based Treaty LA meetup at Au Lac!
Join us Wednesday, July 1 at 6 pm in DTLA to connect and grow the Plant Based Treaty movement, because strong communities build winning campaigns. 💪
📍 Au Lac (Banquet Room)
710 W 1st St, DTLA
🕕 6:00–6:45 pm Meet up
🕕 7:00–9:00 pm Open Mic
📝 We currently have 76 city endorsement and LA County cities need to step up! Come find out how you can help make that happen!
This space is for both current volunteers and new folks ready to plug in.
Come reconnect with the team, meet new allies, and join a short intro + refresher on:
– Latest PBT updates
– How to talk about PBT and how to start a city campaign
– Ways to take action
🍽️ Light appetizers provided.
🎤 Stay after for Open Mic hosted by Sean Hill (@letsbendreality). Bring a poem, song, comedy set, story, or come support the incredible talent in our community.
Where: Au Lac (Banquet Room)
Date: Wednesday the 1st
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 701 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Website: Instagram Page
Be the Change: Social Justice Writing Workshop with James Coats – Online Zoom Event
Be the Change, a Social Justice Writing Workshop, is held every 1st Wednesday of the month and led by poet and author James Coats.
Workshop is free: name your own price.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Online Event
Date: Wednesday the 1st
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event Zoom ID: 826 5843 0669 Password: justice
Website: Instagram Page
Kemper Donovan & Sweet Spot (A Ghostwriter Mystery #3) at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to welcome Kemper Donovan to discuss Sweet Spot (A Ghostwriter Mystery #3).
Ghostwriters, just like ghosts, shouldn’t exist. Knowing that the latest juicy memoir was penned by a stranger for a paycheck tends to ruin the illusion of intimacy. But not every ghostwriter is in it for the money alone.
For Belle Currer—as the ghostwriter extraordinaire prefers to be known—Genevieve Caraway’s memoir is an irresistible project, a tale of tragedy overcome. At 14, Genevieve was abducted from her bedroom by a couple and held hostage for three months. She’s now a happily married mother with a flourishing career, a poster child for thriving after trauma. Still, the scars haven’t entirely faded.
Genevieve’s lavish Utah home, “Sweet Spot,” is a guarded compound impregnable to outsiders—theoretically, at least. But Belle’s arrival coincides with the parole of Deirdre Gregory, one of Genevieve’s kidnappers. When Deirdre shows up at Sweet Spot begging to see Genevieve, she is refused. The next day, Deirdre’s dead body is found on the grounds.
How did Deirdre get in? More importantly, who killed her? Belle soon joins Detective Kay Adams, the pregnant Mormon detective assigned to the case, in sifting through the suspects. The compound is filled with family and friends—and also with secrets, including one the ghostwriter has been carrying for far too long. She knows how guilt, remorse, and love can drive people to do unthinkable things. And that no matter how much you try to keep the world at bay, the best and worst of it may find a way to get in…
Kemper Donovan is an acclaimed author and host of the “All About Agatha” podcast. A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, he worked at the literary management company Circle of Confusion for a decade before transitioning to writing full-time. He is a member of the New York Bar Association, PEN America, and Mystery Writers of America. He lives with his husband and daughters in Los Angeles and can be found online at KemperDonovan.com.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 1st
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2026-07-01/kemper-donovan-sweet-spot-ghostwriter-mystery-3
The Fleuria Presents: Lavanya Lakshimi, with Joss Richard and Allison Ambili, & Leave and Come Back at The Studio – In-Person Event
Join us for a Pop Culture & Romance discussion in honor of the launch of Lavanya Lakshmi’s Leave and Come Back. The author will be in conversation with her guests, author Joss Richard (Let’s Kiss and Tell) and moderator Allison Ambili.
We will chat about how the stories we grow up with shape the stories we tell. From iconic romantic moments on screen to favorite tropes, nostalgia, and the media that stays with us, expect an evening filled with thoughtful conversation and laughs.
NOTE: ticketed event; see site for details.
Where: The Studio
Date: Wednesday the 1st
Time: 6:30 pm – 9 pm
Address: 636 Cypress Ave., Hermosa Beach, CA
Website: Instagram Page
Poetry Club: The Wild Iris by Louise Glück at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join us for the newest book club at Village Well: The Poetry Club!
Each month, members will read the chosen poetry book and bring their favorite selections to share and discuss. Participation is free; just come with an open mind! Whether poetry is daunting or your passion, we’d love to have you!
Our selection for July is The Wild Iris by Louise Glück.
From Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Louise Glück, a stunningly beautiful collection of poems that encompasses the natural, human, and spiritual realms.
Bound together by the universal themes of time and mortality and with clarity and sureness of craft, Louise Glück’s poetry questions, explores, and finally celebrates the ordeal of being alive.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Wednesday the 1st
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Dylan Landis, with Janet Fitch, & List of All Possible Desires: A Novel in Stories at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Dylan Landis, in conversation with Janet Fitch, will discuss List of All Possible Desires: A Novel in Stories.
A dazzling novel in stories following Rainey Royal—a young artist coming of age through the tumult of New York City in the ’70s and ’80s—and her family across generations of obsession, betrayal, and reinvention, written with the trademark beauty and precision of Dylan Landis. For fans of Mary Gaitskill and Lauren Groff.
In postwar Paris, over the course of one fateful day, a boy’s crush on his nanny ignites into a destructive passion that burns into his memory and reveals to him the disquieting world of adult secrets. In 1950s New York City, a naïve caretaker struggles to protect her charge, a married woman paralyzed by her recent stroke, as new bruises appear each day on her body. In the 1970s, a fragile cousin wanders into Royal Family’s chaotic jazz-filled townhouse, where music, sex, and ruin intertwine. And at the heart of these stories is Rainey Royal herself, coming of age in Greenwich village, inventing herself as an artist through the tumult of the ’70s and ’80s.
By turns shocking, erotic, and deeply humane, List of All Possible Desires is a haunting portrait of family and history. It is joined by the expanded re-issues of the novel Rainey Royal and the novel in stories Normal People Don’t Live Like This to create the Rainey Royal Cycle. Each book stands on its own, yet together they echo and amplify each other, creating a world of almost unbearable richness and intensity.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 1st
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818. Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Author Event: Emmaia Gelman & The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State at Page Against the Machine – In-Person Event
Emmaia Gelman, in conversation with Hari Ziyad, will present and discuss The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State.
The first-ever history of the Anti-Defamation League and its determined, century-long alliance with Western empire.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a major US political organization, yet its politics have gone largely unexamined. While the ADL is often portrayed as a defender against antisemitism and racism, its history shows that it is better understood as a proponent of the racial state and US empire. From “correcting” the embarrassing racial difference of immigrant Jews to policing the leftist politics of Black, Arab, and Jewish groups, the ADL pursued a conservative version of civil rights paired with aggressive anti-communism. Even as it became an authority on white nationalism in the 1970s, the ADL joined with the emerging anti-left, anti-Arab, and pro-Western neoconservative movement.
This history presaged the ADL’s work, from the 1980s to the present, in developing the hate crimes framework as a pro-state policing project, which soon merged with the “War on Terror,” the “antisemitism scare,” and anti-Palestinian racism. The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State presents the ADL’s history through its conflicts with social justice movements, illuminating the ADL’s outsize role in shaping the ideas about race and rights that have underwritten US empire.
Emmaia Gelman is the founding Director of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism. She has taught social and cultural analysis at NYU and social sciences at Sarah Lawrence College. Her writing appears in Jewish Currents, Boston Review, The Forward, and elsewhere. She is co-editor of 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘯𝘵𝘪-𝘋𝘦𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘨𝘶𝘦: 𝘈 𝘊𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 (Pluto Press, 2026) and co-hosts the podcast 𝘜𝘯𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘡𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘮. Emmaia is co-chair of the American Studies Association Caucus on Academic and Community Activism, and a longtime activist in New York City.
RSVP: The event is free and open to the public but seating is limited so we ask that you please RSVP at https://bit.ly/ADLRacialStatePATM.
Where: Page Against the Machine
Date: Wednesday the 1st
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 2714 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: Facebook Page
RECESS Open Mic: PUA Turns 8 at SIPA HQ, Palms Up Academy – In-Person Event
RECESS Open Mic is at SIPA HQ on Wednesdays.
Come celebrate 8 years of RECESS Mic! There wit be a roster of special performances this year in #HistoricFilipinotown.
Standard mic RSVP; rules and entry apply.
This dynamic open mic is the most accessible public program in the Palms Up Academy curriculum and manifests their mission statement in a physical (and digital) space.
Host: Lady Basco
NOTE: Only self-sign-ups are allowed.
20 slots available; 15 slots for dinner served; remaining slots for faculty.
See site for further details,
NOTE: See site for RSVP, cost, guidelines, and details.
Where: SIPA HQ
Date: Wednesday, the 1st
Time: 7 pm – 9:30 pm (Doors at 6:30 pm; Open Mic at 8 pm)
Address: 3200 W. Temple St., Ste. 100, Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: Instagram Page
Author Event: Meaghan Garvey & Midwestern Death Trip at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Meaghan Garvey will present and discuss her debut book, Midwestern Death Trip.
Propelled by her mother’s death into a half-life of drug-dealing boyfriends and shivery mornings, Meaghan Garvey finds salvation in dingy dive bars—and in being the stranger who is always moving on to somewhere else. When chance gifts her with a Cadillac with a blood-red paint-job and matching leather seats, Garvey sets out on an amphetamine-fueled road-trip through her native Midwest in the hopes of resolving the mysteries of her itinerant personal life.
Part coming-of-age memoir and part 1940s film noir jail-break, Midwestern Death Trip combines the thrill of the open road with an unsparing coming-of-age story set amid a haunted landscape of back-woods diners and small-town bar tops. A speed demon’s encounter with the depths of American loneliness from the Hunter Thompson of the 2020s.
Meaghan Garvey is a longtime music critic and cultural essayist from Chicago. Midwestern Death Trip is her first book.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Wednesday, the 1st
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events/5175320260701
Linda Codega, with Petra Lord, & Pasha the Storm at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Linda Codega, in conversation with Petra Lord, will discuss Pasha the Storm.
An exiled pirate queen hunts a killer whale on the high seas, while caught between a power-hungry empress and a revolutionary conspiring to end her reign.
Pasha the Northern Storm was once the most infamous Meridian pirate who ever sailed the sister oceans. Now, a decade into her exile, Pasha’s afterlife is being held hostage by Atle, an absurdly attractive noble who knows far too much about pirate magic—but not enough about sailing to realize how dangerous Pasha really is.
Minister Atle Itaavar is duty-bound to serve the Kingdom of Garda, but as Queen Thivaldís gathers support for her ambitions of empire, Atle turns to treason to stop her. In order to destroy the Queen’s new necromantic navy, Atle plans to steal the Queen’s flagship, kidnap a washed-up pirate to sail it, and track down a legendary killer whale to bring it down.
But the hunt for the great undying whale drags Pasha, Atle, and the crew of the Dog into a cosmic reckoning as they face threats from ghosts and gods alike—and the Queen of Garda is close behind.
Linda H. Codega is a nonbinary queer Virginian living in the hills of the San Gabriel Mountains, where they can often be found hiking, sailing, or haunting the local movie theater. They are a writer and entertainment journalist currently working in television production. Their articles appear on Rascal, i09, Reactor, Polygon, and The Observer. They are a Hugo Award-winning first reader at Strange Horizons. You can find them at LinCodega.com.
NOTE: See site to RSVP.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Wednesday the 1st
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-07-01/linda-codega
Anansi Writers Workshop & Book Launch at The World Stage – In-Person Event
The Anansi Writers Workshop was founded in 1990 by Kamau Daáood, Akilah Oliver, Nafis Nabawi and Anthony Lyons. In 1993, Michael Datcher initiated the development of a three-part format for the workshop. Our tradition of a community workshop began in the late 1960s at the Watts Writers’ Workshop, where World Stage co-founder Kamau Daáood started his writing career. Hosted by Jessica Gallion aka “Yellawoman.”
- 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm — Formal workshop
- 8:30 pm – 9:00 pm — TBA
- 9:05 pm – 10:00 pm — Open mic.
Suggested: $10.00 Donation via PayPal: The World Stage Gallery.
NOTE: See site for further details and any change in the schedule. Contact on Instagram @ _yellawoman.
Where: The World Stage (use left rear entrance)
Date: Wednesday, the 1st
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: TBA
Where: Art Parlor
Date: Wednesday the 1st
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 1st
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: Free Workshop Page
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg and guest poet Katharine VanDewark at The Ugly Mug – In-Person Event
Host Ben Trigg welcomes Katharine VanDewark to read and discuss her work.
Katharine VanDewark was born in Baltimore and lived a bicoastal life until college. She has been included in the following: Lummox Number Nine; Last Call, Chinaski!; Amarillo Bay; Dos Passos Review; Wild Violet; Quiddity; Qwerty No. 32; Sanskrit; Palos Verdes Library Anthologies 2017, 2018, 2020; Coracle; Spectrum 26; and Bay to Ocean Journal 2023. She won the poetry portion of the 2022 Crossroads Poetry and MicroFiction contest. Her latest book, Dead Calm, Night Heron, is available on Barnes & Noble (or Amazon), or from the trunk of her car.
$5 cover fee, cash only
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Wednesday, the 2nd
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 2nd
Time: 10 am – 11 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Book Club: The Wager at Hermosa Beach Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join us for a lively discussion of The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann. Books are available for check-out at the library. For adults.
Where: Hermosa Beach Library,LACL
Date: Thursday the 2nd
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Address: 550 Pier Ave., Hermosa Beach, CA 90254
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/16633271
Open Mic Night at Anaheim Central Library – In-Person Event
Please join us every first Thursday of the month from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. for Open Mic Night at the Anaheim Central Library. Poets, singers, songwriters, storytellers, writers, comedians, dancers, supporters, and listeners are welcome! Each event includes a featured performance by a published poet or musician. Performer sign-ups begin at 4:15 p.m. The event is held in the multi-purpose room on the basement level. Hope to see you there!
Where: Anaheim Central Library
Date: Thursday the 2nd
Time: 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm
Address: 500 W. Broadway, Anaheim, CA 92805
Website: https://anaheim.libcal.com/event/15552902?hs=a
Fresh Grounds Open Mic: Marc J. Cyd at Recreational Coffee – In-Person Event
Hello everyone! We’re back in business with a new location!
Please join us on 7/2 at @recreationalcoffee in Long Beach. We’re so excited to be featuring @thefinalbossofpoetry!
Thank you all for your patience, we can’t wait to see you again!
Where: Recreational Coffee
Date: Thursday the 2nd
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 237 Long Beach Blvd., Suite A, Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: Instagram Page
P.C. Verrone, with Christine Lynch, & Rabbit, Fox, Tar: A Novel at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to welcome P.C. Verrone, in conversation with Christien Lynch, to discuss Rabbit, Cox, Tar: A Novel.
A mesmerizing, fable-like debut novel about a mysterious young Black woman whose arrival in an insular neighborhood threatens to shake its foundations.
When Baby appears in Original Hill, her name is on everyone’s lips. A young Black woman is a rare sight in this part of town, and she sits all day on the Foxes’ garden wall, swinging her bare feet and speaking to no one. That is, until the charismatic Lucius “Lucky” Foote comes along and touches her, sparking their romance. Arm-in-arm with Baby, who seems to exert a seemingly supernatural pull on the other residents, Lucky is confident he will secure the open city council seat away from Baby’s uncle Eugene Fox, the back-from-retirement white incumbent.
With protestors reopening old wounds around the Black neighborhood that was leveled by the nearby highway decades ago and Lucky threatening his position, Fox believes it’s not just a city council seat at stake, but the “soul” of Original Hill.
As Baby is woven further into the unraveling community, she begins to stray from Fox’s strict rules and question everything, from where she came from to who—and what—she truly is.
P.C. Verrone’s work has appeared in FIYAH, PodCastle, Nightmare, and numerous anthologies. He has been a Tin House Resident, a Playwrights’ Center Fellow, and a WNDB Black Creatives Revisions Workshop winner. He graduated from Harvard College and holds an MFA in creative writing from Rutgers University–Newark. He lives in Dallas with his husband, a historian.
Christina Lynch is at the beck and call of two dogs, three horses, and a hilarious pony who carts her up and down mountains while demanding (and receiving) many carrots. Besides Pony Confidential, she is also the author of two historical novels set in Italy and the coauthor of two comic thrillers set in Prague and Vienna. She teaches at College of the Sequoias and lives in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 2nd
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2026-07-02/pc-verrone-rabbit-fox-tar-novel
Poetry Anthology Launch: Made From Midnight: Delirium at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join us for the launch of a new anthology, Made From Midnight: Delirium, from Poets in the Pines.
Anthology editor and Poets in the Pines co-founder Anne Ramallo and local contributors Daniel Gonzales, Andy Huy Le and Christina Connorton unite for a book launch celebration featuring author readings and a panel discussion exploring how these writers translate dreams into compelling words, images, and insight about who we are–perfect for writers, dreamers, and anyone curious about the transformative power of midnight.
Reserve your seat by clicking link at website!
Enter a dreamhouse where form and structure fragment, threads unravel, and reality blurs at watercolor edges. Sixty-eight writers from around the world explore the winding corridors of delirium, where the mind unlocks old memories and opens doors to strange and terrifying worlds. These poems and short stories inspired by dreams pose questions about language, identity, memory, and the different ways we carry home.
Anne Ramallo, co-founder of Poets in the Pines, is a writer, editor, performer, and mom working from LA. Her poetry and short fiction have been featured in journals and anthologies including Sky Island, Cosmic Daffodil, and Uncharted. Her chapbook, The Ocean In A Cup, is forthcoming.
Daniel Gonzalez earned his MFA in Creative Writing from CSULB, where he served as senior editor of Fiction for RipRap Journal. He has written an award-winning short film and published short fiction & poetry. He enjoys eating with friends and writing about those small human moments which we all share.
Andy Huy Le is just some guy who teaches. He was the poetry slam captain for UCSB’s first CUPSI team in 2019. His published poems can be found in The Catalyst, Word Magazine, WILDsound Writing Festival, MoonLit Getaway, The Love Yourself Foundation (LYF), eMerge Magazine, Blood+Honey, and Poets in the Pines.
Christina Connerton is a disabled writer and filmmaker with published works in Eunoia Review and Frontier Poetry. In her Substack, The Wayside Times, she unpacks and critiques her internalized ableism. She is currently working on her first chapbook, The Last Will & Testament of [Redacted].
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Thursday the 2nd
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
At Skylight: Emmaia Gelman, with Hari Ziyad, & The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State at Skylight – In-Person Event
Emmaia Gelman, in conversation with Hari Ziyad, will present and discuss The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State.
The first-ever history of the Anti-Defamation League and its determined, century-long alliance with Western empire.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a major US political organization, yet its politics have gone largely unexamined. While the ADL is often portrayed as a defender against antisemitism and racism, its history shows that it is better understood as a proponent of the racial state and US empire. From “correcting” the embarrassing racial difference of immigrant Jews to policing the leftist politics of Black, Arab, and Jewish groups, the ADL pursued a conservative version of civil rights paired with aggressive anti-communism. Even as it became an authority on white nationalism in the 1970s, the ADL joined with the emerging anti-left, anti-Arab, and pro-Western neoconservative movement.
This history presaged the ADL’s work, from the 1980s to the present, in developing the hate crimes framework as a pro-state policing project, which soon merged with the “War on Terror,” the “antisemitism scare,” and anti-Palestinian racism. The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State presents the ADL’s history through its conflicts with social justice movements, illuminating the ADL’s outsize role in shaping the ideas about race and rights that have underwritten US empire.
Emmaia Gelman is the founding Director of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism. She has taught social and cultural analysis at NYU and social sciences at Sarah Lawrence College. Her writing appears in Jewish Currents, Boston Review, The Forward, and elsewhere.
NOTE: See site to RSVP.
Where: Skylight
Date: Thursday the 2nd
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Poetry Diet Open Mic at The Living Room, DTLA – In-Person Event
An intimate open mic night for poets, storytellers, and lovers of the spoken word.
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 2nd
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 3rd
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 3rd
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 3rd
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
June FOURTH FRIDAYS ON 4TH Street with Art & Activist Pop-Upswith Page Against the Machine – In-Person Event
Join us for our first summertime foray into Fourth Fridays on 4th on June 26th from 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm and enjoy more than 50 local artist pop-ups, live music, and food & drink specials all along 4th Street’s Retro Row between Temple and Hermosa avenues.
As always, a freewheeling mix of local Long Beach art and activism will be popping up and popping off on the Page Against The Machine sidewalk, guaranteed to get you on your feet and into the street! We’ll be joined by Long Beach record label Jes Grew Soul, bringing music, merch, and otherworldly vibes to set the scene for activist-inspired art and accessories by Kajora Lovely, and bargain-priced, secondhand books that celebrate women, people of color, and queer folks from the Nameless Bookstore.
Long Beach Locals for Liberation, an informal, non-aligned coalition of leftist LB activists who come together to organize and advocate for immigrant, Indigenous, Palestinian, and LGBTQ+ rights and against imperialism and the fascist MAGA Trump agenda, along with comrades from the Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and Students for Justice in Palestine-Palestine-CSULB will be all out in full force to educate, agitate, and organize.
Summer’s here and the time is right for dancing–and organizing–in the street!
Where: Page Against the Machine
Date: Friday the 3rd
Time: 6 pm – 9 pm
Address: 2714 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: Facebook Page
Tia Chucha’s Open Mic Night at Tia Chucha’s Cultural & Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us every 1st Friday of the month for our Open Mic Night.
Contact info: Cecelia@TIACHUCHA.ORG
Where: Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore
Date: Friday the 3rd
Time: 6 pm – 9 pm
Address: 12877 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar, CA 91342
Website: Instagram Page
Fresh Fridays Open Mic with LA Poet Society at Senior Fish Eagle Rock – In-Person Event
Join us every 1st Friday of the month for Fresh Fridays Open Mic at Senior Fish Eagle Rock.
Where: Senior Fish, Eagle Rock
Date: Friday the 3rd
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 4803 N. Eagle Rock Blvd., Eagle Rock, CA
Website: Instagram Page
SWAAM Spoken Word Art & Music Event at Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center – In-Person Event
SWAAM Spoken Word Art & Music is offered every 1st & 3rd Friday of the month and hosted by Loranzo Frank.
Featured guests: TBA
Tickets at Eventbrite.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where: Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center
Date: Friday, the 3rd
Time: 8 pm – 12 am
Address: 4305 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.depoet.info/swaam
Rapp Saloon Reading Series: First Fridays Open Mic with host Cynthia Alessandra Briano at Rapp Saloon, Santa Monica – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
First Fridays at Rapp Saloon is celebrating 10 years and has an Open Mic & Featured Readers every 1st Friday of the month.
First Friday: Cynthia Alessandra Briano, Host
This is a hybrid event, live in-person while offering a Zoom option for our performers and guests.
Our featured guest poets and artists this month: TBA
“A word is worth a thousand pictures.”
NOTE: See site or flyer for details.
Where: Rapp Saloon at HISUA
Date: Friday, the 3rd
Time: 8 pm – 11 pm
Address: 1436 2nd St., Santa Monica, CA 90402
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: Saturday the 4th
Time: 10 am – 11 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Poetry Writing Workshop – Online Zoom Event
Join us for a Poetry Writing Workshop led by DKC (Submit up to 3 poems totaling no more than 150 lines including the subject of or at least mentioning burst for Four Feathers Press online edition: BURST by emailing donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59 pm, July 10th)
All events are curated by Don Kingfisher Campbell.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry, Online
Date: Saturday, the 4th
Time: 3 pm – 4:30 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event
Website: https://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
The Griot Café with Tommy Domino at Shades of Afrika – In-Person Event
Join host Tommy Domino for The Griot Café every first Saturday inside The Shades of Afrika for: good vibes, spoken word, poetry and more!
Note: CHECK TO CONFIRM ON POND WATER
THIS HOLIDAY DATE.
Feature; TBA
Music: DJ PW
Where: Shades of Afrika
Date: Saturday, the 4th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 1001 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: Instagram Page
Magical Morning Book Club: The Sirens at Arvida Books – In-Person Event
Join the Magical Morning Book Club!
Join participants every 1st Sunday of the month at 11:00 am.
July: The Sirens by Emilia Hart.
Bookclub hosted by Arvida & run by @magicalmorningbookclub.
Where: Arvida Books, Patio
Date: Sunday the 5th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 115 W. Main St., Tustin, CA 92780
Website: Withfriends 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 5th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Zine Making Event at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
All ages are invited to participate in this open studio-time dedicated to zine-making.
A zine is pronounced [zeen], and it is short for “magazine.” These handmade books can be easily reproduced using a copy machine and distributed to your community. Rooted in countercultural movements to spread info for social good, zines are low-budget and low-tech ways to spread your message.
We encourage you to stop by Village Well every Sunday in July to celebrate International Zine Month! Bring your big ideas, browse our zine collection for sale, and create a zine of your own.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Sunday the 5th
Time: 12 pm – 2 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Under the Oak Trees: Poetry at Puvungna & Open Mic at CSULB Parking Lot G – In-Person Event
All are welcomed to join us on Sunday, July 5, 2026 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm at the sacred site of Puvungna. (Parking Lot G2, California State University, Long Beach).
Bring your poetry, spoken word, instrument or songs. Opened to full community participation; all individuals are welcome. Please remember to follow protocol. Special Guest: Susan Suntree.
Susan Suntree is a Los Angeles-based poet, performer, and essayist whose work investigates the dynamics of science, art, and spiritual philosophies as they engage contemporary life.
Visitors attending should be mindful of the land’s importance, follow all posted or verbal protocols, respect the natural environment, and leave the space exactly as it was found. This is a potluck style gathering, bring a dish to share with community, your own water bottle & something to sit on. For more information or to let us know you’d like mic time please email: friendsofpuvungna@gmail.com
Where: CSULB Parking Lot G-2
Date: Sunday the 5th
Time: 2 pm – 5 pm
Address: 5151 State University Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90032
(The lot is situated on the eastern side of the campus, directly adjacent to the Housing & Residential Life complex)
Website: Instagram Page
Writers Group at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Join our Writers Group on the first Sunday of every month from 4:30 pm to closing.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Sunday the 5th
Time: 4:30 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figuroa St., Los Angeles, CA, 90042
The Sunday Jump Reading Series & Open Mic at Pilipino Workers Center – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Welcome to our 14th season of Sunday Jump! This year our seasonal theme is: Heat Rising. Featured Guest is Pastiche Queen.
Pastiche Queen (They/Them) is a non-binary latindigenous, interdisciplinary performance artist from Denver, CO, currently based in Hollywood, CA. Their one-person show, “Level One Gygax,” originally developed through the REDCAT Artist-in-Residency Program in 2022, garnered The Theatricum Botanicum Wordsmith Award for Advancing The Artform of Storytelling and multiple Producers’ Encore Awards.
In the slam poetry scene, Pastiche has won multiple individual championship titles in California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Washington DC, and New York City. Pastiche is also a proud member of the West Hollywood Slam Team, which has achieved multiple championship titles on both national and local levels. You can catch Pastiche most Tuesdays at Da Poetry Lounge at The Greenway Court Theater. With Get Lit, Pastiche synthesizes their extensive experience into creating a safe, inclusive, and dynamic classroom environment.
Heat is a powerful form of energy, vital for survival. It is supplied from the sun, the stove for a home-cooked meal, the hugs we give each other, redistributed through touch and connection. It is light, warmth, and care in times of turmoil. It can be found in the fire ignited within ourselves. Fire can burst into chaos, a symbol for uprisings and revolution, but also renewal. It rises and inspires change. It can also burn out and in the aftermath, allow growth and new life to emerge.
Join us in Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles in the Pabelonia Community Sisters Room on the first floor of @pwcsc every first Sunday of the Month until November. Open mic sign ups start at 4:30 pm and the event will be 5 pm – 7 pm. 🎤🎶
Arrive early to get a taste of all the action, good eats, support local businesses, and sign up for a chance to get on stage. Streaming every show live on Twitch and YouTube – link in bio!
Where: Pilipino Workers Center
Date: Sunday the 5th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: 153 Glendale Ave., Los Angeles, CA, 90026
Website: Instagram Page
Farce of July Event & Open Mic at Pain Sugar Gallery in Partnership with Barrio Fuerza, Riverside – In-Person Event
5th of July is for Farce of July! We miss our community and had such great memories from last year’s bbq that we felt we should bring it back as guests in our good friends @pain.sugar.gallery space.
This year’s focus is 🏴 radical book swap. Bring a stack of books you’ve already read and let the knowledge pass to someone else in the community. Trade for free or sell them at a lower price; the idea is to spread information.
We’ll have zines and book sale as well from:
🏴@ie.anarchistlit
⛓️@ierg4pe
🏴@ieanarchistbookfair
🏴Musical performance by the great @kozmik.force
⛓️Open mic for our community to vent, share a political thought, or spread a message.
Sign-ups will be from 6 pm – 8 pm
5 mins max per reader.
Come listen to our featured political poets:
Erick Aguinaldo (@erickaguinaldo) is a poet known for his work that often reflects themes of identity, struggle, and resilience. His poetry, such as the untitled piece shared in “V for Vendetta,” captures the intersection of beauty and pain, emphasizing a fight for freedom and remembrance of lost loved ones.
Peter Lechuga (@handsomeherbivore) is a writer, poet, and musician who writes about nature, beauty, and social injustice. He rhymes under the pseudonym 4Tell as a member of the Pilgrimms art collective, which collaborates with artists to create visual art while making conscious, avant-garde hip-hop.
Alma Rosa Azul (@almarosaazul) is an anarchist, poet and community organizer. She is the author of Mariaposa: Poems of Love and Liberation (Riot of Roses Publishing House, 2025).
🏴 Bring some meat, veggies, or vegan protein for the grill.
🏴 Drop books off at tonight’s and at future @ie.anarchistlit meetings!
We look forward to seeing you there!
Where: Pain Sugar Gallery
Date: Sunday the 5th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 3635 9th St., Riverside, CA 92501
Website: Instagram Page
Fernando Funes Presents: The Dazed + Confused Poetry Club & Open Micat The Glendale Room – In-Person Event
Join us for the Dazed + Confused Poetry Club & Open Mic, hosted by Fernando Funes and featuring booked poets and an Open Mic.
RSVP: $5 Tickets on Eventbrite.
Where: The Glendale Room
Date: Sunday the 5th
Time: 8:30 pm
Address: 127 N. Artsakh Ave., Glendale CA 91206
Website: The Glendale Room
Los Angeles Literature 