L.A. Zine Club via Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us for Zine Club on Zoom, where members of our group meetup in a virtual space to co-work, chat, and share inspiration for whatever projects we’re working on. Zine Club is based on the idea of gathering together to create zines, share zines we like, zines that we are working on, music to make zines to and much more. Bring pens, paper, scissors, glue sticks, magazines, and other supplies to make a zine.
Where: Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 2nd
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event
Website: https://www.lapl.org/events/la-zine-club
Mindfulness Book Talk: The Braided Prescription by Beth Ricanati, MD at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join physician and author Beth Ricanati in conversation with her longtime friend, television producer and community leader Francie Calfo, for a lively conversation about the rituals that help us stay grounded, connected, and well—especially when life gets stressful. Drawing from Beth’s new book, The Braided Prescription, they’ll explore what challah has to do with medicine, why small, repeated practices matter, and how we can bring more meaning and connection into our everyday lives.
What if an ancient ritual could transform the way you live today?
In her beloved first book, Braided, Dr. Beth Ricanati shared how making sacred bread, challah, every Friday for over a decade transformed her life. Now, in The Braided Prescription, she shares insights from her subsequent challah workshops with groups all over America and even abroad, distilling what she’s learned into seven attainable and powerful practices for managing stress in our daily lives.
Blending personal stories, scientific research, and timeless wisdom, Ricanati demonstrates how these seven practices can restore presence in a distracted world, strengthen bonds with family and community, and teach resilience through imperfection. With warmth and wisdom, she shows how the weekly ritual of making challah bread can help us mend what feels frayed, anchor what feels uncertain, and create space for what truly matters.
Beth Ricanati, MD is a board-certified internist, award-winning author and speaker. She has spent her career focused on improving the well-being of her patients’ lives in traditional medical clinics and wellness programs, and now also as a speaker and author. She resides in Southern California with her family.
Order the book and RSVP for the event by clicking link at website!
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Monday the 2nd
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Los Feliz Writers: Shut Up and Write in Los Feliz at Sidewalk Grill – In-Person Event
Looking for some dedicated writing time? Come by our weekly neighborhood meetups:
Mondays @ 6:45 pm – 8 pm at Sidewalk Grill (NEW)
Wednesdays @ 6:45 pm – 8 pm at Bar Alcove & Bakery
All writers and all experience levels are welcome!
We’re starting a Shut Up and Write event on Mondays too, thanks to @jack_andcat.
Hosted by @literarypixie!
RSVP at link in bio.
Where: Sidewalk Grill
Date: Monday the 2nd
Time: 6:45 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1727 N. Vermont Ave. #102, Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: Instagram 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!
Where: Back to the Grind, Riverside
Date: Monday the 2nd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 3575 University Ave. Riverside, CA 9250
Website: Facebook Page
Ticketed Event: Jeff Garlin Signs Jeff Garlin: Best Seats in the House: Moments No One Asked Me to Capture…But I Did Anyway at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Jeff Garlin will sign Jeff Garlin: Best Seats in the House: Moments No One Asked Me to Capture…But I Did Anyway.
An inside look at comedy’s biggest stars through candid never-before-seen photographs with hilarious personal stories that capture the heart of life on and offstage.
Beloved for his iconic roles including Jeff Greene on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm and Murray Goldberg on ABC’s The Goldbergs and for his decades on the stand-up stage, Garlin is known for his humor, heart, and magnetic presence. Less known is his passion for photography and his gift for capturing the unscripted moments that define life behind the curtain.
For years, Garlin has quietly documented backstage life and private gatherings with comedy’s biggest stars and Hollywood’s most familiar faces. Now, for the first time, he’s gathered his best work alongside personal anecdotes—captured in conversation with podcast host Sam Fragoso—that reveal the humor and tenderness of Garlin’s closest friends, collaborators, and mentors.
Featuring iconic images from the Curb Your Enthusiasm series finale and portraits of luminaries including Larry David, Mel Brooks, Brad Pitt, Jerry Seinfeld, Bob Odenkirk, Christie Brinkley, Carl Reiner, Sarah Silverman, Jerrod Carmichael, and many more, this book is a love letter to comedy and its creators. Each image reflects the wit, warmth, and spontaneity that define Garlin’s voice—onstage, onscreen, and now behind camera.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Monday the 2nd
Time: 7 pm
Address: 8818 W. Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-09-17/ticketed-event-jeff-garlin
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 2nd
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)
Website: Beyond Baroque Event 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 3rd
Time: 10 am – 11 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Virtual Author Talk: Asha Frost & You Are the Medicine via Virtual Program, LACL – Online Event
Join us for a transformative virtual conversation with Indigenous Medicine Woman Asha Frost as she explores her groundbreaking book, You Are the Medicine: 13 Moons of Indigenous Wisdom, Ancestral Connection, and Animal Spirit Guidance.
The Medicine you have been searching for lives within you. Follow the path of the 13 Ojibwe Moons with Animal Spirits and Ancestors as your guides as you unlock your connection to your own unique, inherent healing power. Through storytelling, ceremonies, and Shamanic journeys, learn to apply ancient wisdom to your life in ways that are respectful and conscious of the stolen lands, lives, and traditions of Indigenous peoples.
Register now and take the first step toward recognizing and reclaiming your innate wisdom.
Where: Virtual Program, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 3rd
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/17689705
Virtual Book Club: Crux by Gabriel Tallent via Virtual Program, LACL – Online Event
Join us on Zoom in November as we discuss Crux by Gabriel Tallent. We meet weekly on Tuesdays from 11 am – 12 pm. Contact Marta Wiggins at mwiggins@library.lacounty.gov for your invitation to join the discussion. For Adults
We read 1/4 of the book each week. Below is the breakdown for the weekly discussion:
November 3: Part 1 – The Princess – Pages 3 – 71
November 10: Part 2 – Intersection – Pages 75 – 161
November 17: Part 3 – Isolation – Pages 165 – 273
November 24: Parts 4 & 5 – Wonderland & Exposure – Pages 277 to the end of the book
Dan and Tamma are two teenagers in their last year of high school in the southern Mojave Desert. One is a gifted golden child, the other a mouthy burnout. Climbing boulders in trash-strewn parking lots during cold desert nights, they seal their unique bond and dream of a life of adventure. As the year progresses and adult reality looms, they are rocked by change and pulled apart by irreconcilable obligations. Differences of class, talent, and prospects take on new importance; options dwindle, and their decisions grow ever more consequential and perilous. It feels inevitable, finally, that something must give. With a magnificent gift for nature writing and a joyful appreciation for the redemptive power of friendship, Gabriel Tallent gives readers a rollicking, adrenaline-filled, and soul-searching novel about risking everything to change your life.
Where: La Crescenta Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 3rd
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/17419177
Darkest Hour Book Club: Dissection of a Murder at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join us to discuss Dissection of a Murder by Jo Murray. Copies available at the library. For adults
Nothing is as it seems—and no one is telling the truth—in this page-turning thriller about a young lawyer forced to defend a man on trial for murder against the mentor who taught her everything: her husband.
Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 3rd
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: 29901 Ladyface Ct., Agoura Hills, CA 91301
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/17419181
Women and Books Discussion: A Marriage at Sea at West Hollywood Library, LACL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Join us to discuss A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst. Copies available at the library. For adults
Nothing is as it seems—and no one is telling the truth—in this page-turning thriller about a young lawyer forced to defend a man on trial for murder against the mentor who taught her everything: her husband.
Where: West Hollywood Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 3rd
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/17100794
Darkest Hour Book Club: Dissection of a Murder via Agoura Hills Library, LACL – Online Virtual Event
Join us online to discuss Dissection of a Murder by Jo Murray. Copies available at the library. For adults
Nothing is as it seems—and no one is telling the truth—in this page-turning thriller about a young lawyer forced to defend a man on trial for murder against the mentor who taught her everything: her husband.
Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL
Date: Tuesday the 3rd
Time: 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Event
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/17419183
We Live in Public with authors from Aetna Street at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
We Live in Public: Encampments as Resistance and Revolutionary Care will be presented by authors and contributors from Aetna Street.
Encampments as resistance & revolutionary care in Los Angeles.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Tuesday the 3rd
Time: 6:30 pm – 9 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events/6621620261103
Latin American Literature Book Club: Las niñas del naranjel por Gabriela Cabezón Cámara at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Welcome to our newest book club: Latin American Literature Book Club! (Bilingual in Spanish and English).
Bienvenidos a nuestro club de lectura más reciente: ¡Club de lectura de Literatura Latinoamericana! (Dictado en Español e Inglés).
This is a bilingual book club meant for those who want to expand their knowledge in Latin American literature, no matter your fluency in Spanish or English. For our next meeting, we’ll be discussing We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara on November 3rd at 6:30 pm. Hope to see you all there!
Este es un club de lectura bilingüe pensadeo para todas las personas que quieran expandir sus conocimientos en literatura latinoamericana, sin importar su nivel de fluencia en español o inglés. Hablamos de Las niñas del naranjel por Gabriela Cabezón Cámara 3 de noviembre a las 6:30 pm. ¡Esperamos verte ahi!
Abordaje lírico e irreverente del personaje histórico de la Monja Alférez, que nació en España como niña en 1592 y se sumó travestida como varón a la Conquista de América.
«Tan aguda, tan urgente, tan valiente. Gabriela Cabezón Cámara es una de las voces más auténticas escribiendo en español en este momento, y de todos sus talentos hay uno cada día más difícil: no solo hurga y desafía, no solo se anima a la oscuridad, sino que entrega a cambio la subversiva valentía de pensarnos más humanos, más vivos y luminosos que nunca». Samanta Schweblin
Para cumplirle a su Virgen del naranjel—lo ha salvado de la horca—Antonio huye con dos niñas famélicas. En la selva, tan viva como un animal hecho de muchos, comienza una carta a su tía, priora del convento del que escapó siendo novicia. Arriero, tendero, soldado, grumete y paje, ha empuñado la espada y hundido la daga. Ahora debe cuidar de una manada y de Michi y Mitãkuña, que lo interrumpen una y otra vez con sus preguntas difíciles. La autora encuentra en Catalina de Erauso, la legendaria Monja Alférez, quien narre la cruel destrucción de América y le permita avanzar contra los géneros. Donde la avaricia colonial destruye, esta novela monumental funda una nueva gramática amorosa en la que el cine de Miyazaki, los rezos en latín, las canciones en vasco y las palabras del guaraní rompen la métrica del Siglo de Oro.
A lyrical and irreverent imagining of the true story of the Lieutenant Nun, who was born a girl in Spain in 1592 and disguised herself as a man to participate in the Conquest of the Americas.
“So incisive, so urgent, so brave. Gabriela Cabezón Cámara is one of the most authentic voices in today’s Spanish-language literature, and her many talents include one of the most formidable of all: By encouraging us to probe and challenge, to bring light to the darkness, she gives us the subversive courage to become more human, alive and luminous than ever before.”- Samanta Schweblin
To keep his vow to Our Lady of the Orange Grove—who saved him from the noose—Antonio flees with two starving girls. In the jungle, he begins writing a letter to his aunt, the prioress of the convent he escaped as a youth. He has been a mule driver, shopkeeper, soldier, cabin boy and page; he has wielded his sword and slashed with his dagger. Now he has a flock to tend, as well as Michi and Mitãkuña, who pester him constantly with hard-to-answer questions. In Catalina de Erauso, the legendary Lieutenant Nun, the author finds a unique narrator for the destruction of the Americas and a breaker of gender stereotypes. Where colonial greed destroys, this monumental novel builds a new language of love. With influences as varied as the films of Miyazaki, Latin prayers, Basque songs and terms borrowed from Guaraní, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara crafts new rhythms that transcend the bounds of Golden Age Spanish poetry.
Reserve your seat at website link!
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday the 3rd
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Reading & Open Mic: Aruni Wijesinghe at Blackbird Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join featured poet Aruni Wijesinghe for a featured reading and an Open Mic event at Blackbird Books & Coffee.
Aruni Wijesinghe is a Sri Lankan-American writer. A project manager, ESL teacher, erstwhile belly dance instructor, and occasional sous chef, she has been published in anthologies and journals both nationally and internationally. Her first full-length collection, 2 Revere Place, is available now from Moon Tide Press. She also a co-authored The Undulating Line (Picture Show Press, 2021; available on Amazon.com). Aruni has new poetry collections forthcoming with Picture Show Press and Arroyo Seco Press. A native New Yorker, she was born in the Bronx and raised in Rockland County, New York, and Orange County, California, where she resides with Jeff, Jack and Josie.
Where: Blackbird Books & Coffee
Date: Tuesday the 3rd
Time: 7 pm – 9:30 pm (Open Mic sign-ups at 6:30 pm)
Address: 7971 Talbert Ave. Suite 102,. Huntington Beach, CA 92649
Website: Facebook Page
A Reading with Julio Torres: The Perfect Gift Book Launch at Bob Baker Marionette Theater – In-Person Event
Join BBMT and Julio Torres for the official book launch of Torres’ new book, The Perfect Gift. Torres will be reading excerpts from The Perfect Gift with puppet accompaniment, of course!
A copy of The Perfect Gift will be included with each ticket purchase and available for pick up at the event, courtesy of Book Soup.
In this beautifully illustrated book from a brilliantly absurd mind, Julio Torres, cult comedian, filmmaker, and former Saturday Night Live writer, brings his signature surreal humor to this creative collection of gift ideas for every person and occasion. A playful yet profound reflection on human connection, each gift builds on the relationship between the giver and recipient. These are not simply objects—these are bridges: a sublet map to maximize the space in your apartment; a patient grandson who helps with technology; tiny, little stairs so your dreams can come out at night and dance. Delightfully impractical, yet deeply artistic and innovative, The Perfect Gift is the perfect kids book for adults: a celebration of the imagination, especially for those who expect the unexpected.
Ticketed.
Where: Bob Baker Marionette Theater
Date: Tuesday the 3rd
Time: 7 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 4949 York Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://www.bobbakermarionettetheater.com/special-events-onsite/julio-torres
The Sunless Sea Poetry and Spoken Word Show at Qusqo Bistro – In-Person Event
The Sunless Sea Poetry and Spoken Word Show is hosted by De Forest Wright every first Tuesday of the month at Qusqo Bistro.
RSVP for further information.
Where: Qusqo Bistro
Date: Tuesday the 3rd
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 11633 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025
Website: Instagram Page
Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rick Lupert & Guest McKendy Fils-Aimé, plus Open Reading – Online Zoom Event
Cobalt Poets Reading & Open Mic and host Rick Lupert will welcome guest McKendy Fils- Aimé, plus an Open Reading online.
McKendy Fils-Aimé is a New England based Haitian-American poet, organizer, and teaching artist. He has received fellowships from Callaloo, Cave Canem, The Watering Hole, CantoMundo, and Periplus. Over the span of nearly two decades, McKendy has represented New England in several regional and national poetry slams, performing on numerous semifinal and final stages. McKendy’s work has been featured or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, Adroit, Muzzle, American Literary Review, the Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection, sipèstisyon, was published by YesYes Books in 2026.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday, the 3rd
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: Cobalt Event Page
Da Poetry Lounge Open Mic: Every Tuesday at Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center – In-Person Event
The nation’s largest weekly spoken word Open Mic event is 28 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.
Hosted by TBA
With DJ ALWAYZ.
$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. See website link for details.
Where: The Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center
Date: Tuesday, the 3rd
Time: 9 pm – 11 pm (Doors at 8:15 pm)
Address: 4305 Degnan Blvd. #101, 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 4th
Time: 9 am – 10 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Book Party Book Club: North Woods at San Dimas Senior Center, LACL – In-Person Event
Held the first Wednesday of each month at the San Dimas Senior Center, 201 E Bonita Ave. This month’s selection is “North Woods” by Daniel Mason. Copies are available for check out at the La Verne Library circulation desk. For Adults
This month’s selection is “North Woods” by Daniel Mason. When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths a mass grave—only to discover that the ancient trees refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister conman, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: As each inhabitant confronts the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.
Where: San Dimas Senior Center, LACL
Date: Wednesday the 4th
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Address: 201 E. Bonita Ave., San Dimas, CA 91773
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/17184860
Chatsworth Library Book Club : The Spymistress at Chatsworth Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us for a lively discussion of The Spymistress by Jennifer Chiaverini.
When her native Virginia secedes, Quaker-educated aristocrat Elizabeth Van Lew pledges her loyalty to the North at the risk of her life. She uses her innate skills for gathering military intelligence to construct the Richmond underground and orchestrate escapes from the infamous Confederate Libby Prison.
Where: Chatworth Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 4th
Time: 1:30 pm – 2:30 pm
Address: 21052 Devonshire St., Chatsworth, CA 91311
Website: https://www.lapl.org/events/chatsworth-library-book-club-1
Classics Book Club: Klara and the Sun at East Los Angeles Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join us for a discussion of Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. For adults.
This month we discuss Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro’s examination of our changing world, Klara and the Sun.
Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love?
Copies of the book will be available at the circulation desk. Space is limited to 10 participants, so pick up your copy soon! The program will take place in the Chicano Resource Center.
Where: East Los Angeles Library, LACL
Date: Wednesday the 4th
Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm
Address: 4837 E. 3rd St., Los Angeles, CA 90022
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/17657195
Social Justice Book Club for Kids at Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Books can transform the way we look at the world. Join children’s librarians from the Library to discuss kid-friendly books related to topics of social justice. This is an all-ages book club for the whole family. Check out the book of the month at your local library and bring your thoughts and feelings to the conversation.
We will be reading the following books: SEE SITE.
Where: Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 4th
Time: 4 pm – 5 pm
Where: Online Event
Website: https://www.lapl.org/events/social-justice-book-club-kids
Sci-Fi Book Club: The Penultimate Truth By Philip K. Dick at Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join our Science Fiction Book Club to discuss The Penultimate Truth by Philip K. Dick. Copies of the novel are available at the library.
Synopsis: In this dystopian novel of future America, citizens live underground like ants while their mysterious President doesn’t seem to age at all.
Where: Van Nuys Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 28th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Where: 6250 Sylmar Ave., Van Nuys, CA 91401
Website: https://www.lapl.org/events/sci-fi-book-club-penultimate-truth-philip-k-dick
Book Club for Adults: The Silent Patient at El Monte Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join us each month for a facilitated discussion of fiction and non-fiction titles. A limited number of copies are available for book club attendees at the library. Light refreshments will be served. For adults.
October’s Book Pick is The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides.
A psychological thriller about a famous painter who stops speaking after being accused of murdering her husband. Years later, a psychotherapist becomes determined to uncover the truth behind her silence.
Where: El Monte Library, LACL
Date: Wednesday the 28th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: 3224 Tyler Ave., El Monte, CA 91731
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/17361325
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 4th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 1874 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.lapl.org/events/creative-writing-workshop-tony-dushane-20
Happily Ever After Book Club: A Fragile Enchantment at Alondra Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join us for our monthly Happily Ever After Book Club meeting. Pick up a copy on November 4 and meet our group members. We will be discussing A Fragile Enchantment by Allison Saft on November 25 at 6 pm – 7:30 pm. For ages 18 and up.
Where: Alondra Library, LACL
Date: Wednesday the 4th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 11949 Alondra Blvd., Norwalk, CA 90650
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/17676865
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 4th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event Zoom ID: 826 5843 0669 Password: justice
Website: Instagram Page
History Book Club: Testament of Youth at Cellar Door Bookstore – Online Zoom Event
Join us online for History Book Club to discuss Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain and Mark Bostridge.
Giving a voice to a lost generation, this edition features a new introduction by Brittain’s biographer. Now a major motion picture starring Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Hayley Atwell, and Taron Egerton
Much of what we know and feel about the First World War we owe to Vera Brittain’s elegiac yet unsparing book, which set a standard for memoirists from Martha Gellhorn to Lillian Hellman. Abandoning her studies at Oxford in 1915 to enlist as a nurse in the armed services, Brittain served in London, in Malta, and on the Western Front. By war’s end she had lost virtually everyone she loved. Testament of Youth is both a record of what she lived through and an elegy for a vanished generation. Hailed by the Times Literary Supplement as a book that helped “both form and define the mood of its time,” it speaks to any generation that has been irrevocably changed by war.
This edition features a new introduction by Brittain’s biographer examining her struggles to write about her experiences and the book’s reception in England and America.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Vera Brittain (1893–1970) served as a nurse in the British armed forces in World War I and afterward devoted herself to the causes of peace and feminism. She wrote twenty-nine books, of which Testament of Youth is the best-known.
Mark Bostridge is a biographer and literary critic who lives in London.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 4th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event
Website: https://cellardoorbookstore.com/event/2026-11-04/history-book-club-testamant-youth
AI Ethics Book Club: Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career at Ambitious Ales – In-Person Event
Join us for AI Ethics Book Club with Bel Canto Books, led by Agatha Isabel, invites readers into a welcoming, judgment-free space to explore the human impact of emerging technologies through story.
Participants will discuss Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career by Kristi Coulter. The book explores the intense, fear-driven environment at Amazon, characterized by seven-day workweeks, high burnout rates, and grueling performance expectations.
Meeting quarterly at Ambitious Ales, this book club blends accessible reading, guided discussion, and community-building for anyone curious about AI ethics…no technical background required!
Where: Ambitious Ales
Date: Wednesday the 4th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 4019 Atlantic Ave, Long Beach, CA 90807
Website: Withfriends Page
Susan Orlean, with Dana Goodyear, & Joyride: A Memoir at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to welcome Susan Orlean in conversation with Dana Goodyear, to discuss Joyride: A Memoir.
From Susan Orlean, the beloved New Yorker writer and bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book who has been hailed as “a national treasure” by The Washington Post, comes a masterful memoir of finding her creative calling and purpose that invites us to approach life with wonder, curiosity, and an irrepressible sense of delight.
“The story of my life is the story of my stories,” writes Susan Orlean in this extraordinary, era-defining memoir from one of the greatest practitioners of narrative nonfiction of our time. Joyride is a magic carpet ride through Orlean’s life and career, where every day is an opportunity for discovery and every moment holds the potential for wonder. Throughout her storied career, her curiosity has drawn her to explore the most ordinary and extraordinary of places, from going deep inside the head of a regular ten-year-old boy for a legendary profile (“The American Man Age Ten”) to reporting on a woman who owns twenty-seven tigers, from capturing the routine magic of Saturday night to climbing Mt. Fuji.
Not only does Orlean’s account of a writing life offer a trove of indispensable gleanings for writers, it’s also an essential and practical “master class” (The New York Times) to embracing any creative path. She takes us through her process of dreaming up ideas, managing deadlines, connecting with sources, chasing every possible lead, confronting writer’s block and self-doubt, and crafting the perfect lede—a Susan specialty.
While Orlean has always written her way into other people’s lives in order to understand the human experience, Joyride is her most personal book ever—a searching journey through finding her feet as a journalist, recovering from the excruciating collapse of her first marriage, falling head-over-heels in love again, becoming a mother while mourning the decline of her own mother, sojourning to Hollywood for films based on her work including Adaptation and Blue Crush, and confronting mortality. Joyride is also a time machine to a bygone era of journalism, from Orlean’s bright start in the golden age of alt-weeklies to her career-making days working alongside icons such as Robert Gottlieb, Tina Brown, David Remnick, Anna Wintour, Sonny Mehta, and Jonathan Karp—forces who shaped the media industry as we know it today.
Susan Orlean has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992. She is the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Library Book, Rin Tin Tin, Saturday Night, and The Orchid Thief, which was made into the Academy Award–winning film Adaptation. She lives with her family and her animals in Los Angeles.
Dana Goodyear has been writing for The New Yorker since 1999. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Honey and Junk and The Oracle of Hollywood Boulevard, and the nonfiction book, Anything That Moves: Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters, and the Making of a New American Food Culture. She has been a finalist for a National Magazine Award and has twice won the James Beard Foundation Award for Journalism. She is the co-creator, writer, and host of “Lost Hills,” a #1 podcast about crime and law enforcement in Malibu. She lives in Los Angeles.
Where: Diesel, A Bookstore
Date: Wednesday the 4th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2026-11-4/susan-orlean-joyride-memoir
Personal Growth Dual Book Launch: Gary Wolf and June Cohen at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
With so much advice about how to sleep, eat, work, connect, and feel better, how can we determine what genuinely improves our lives?
Join Gary Wolf, cofounder of the Quantified Self movement, and June Cohen, co-creator of TED Talks, for a conversation celebrating their new books, The Quantified Self: Learning to Observe and The Great Remembering: Powerful Ancient Practices—and the New Science Bringing Them Back.
Wolf explores how careful observation and personal data can help us answer questions about our own health and daily lives. Cohen examines the ancient practices that helped humans flourish for millennia—and the emerging science revealing why they still matter.
Together, these longtime friends will explore what technology can teach us, what older traditions can help us recover, and how to cut through competing claims to discover what truly works for us. The result is a practical and thought-provoking conversation about paying closer attention, making more deliberate choices, and learning to live better.
Gary Wolf’s The Quantified Self: Learning to Observe is a groundbreaking guide to scientific reasoning at the scale of a single life. Based on nearly two decades of work in the Quantified Self community, it distills the techniques of empirical observation into practical patterns anyone can use. With chapters on pain, mood, sleep, digestion, heart rate, hormones, and more, The Quantified Self proves that science is for everybody by showing how to make discoveries about your own life from your own data.
In The Great Remembering, June Cohen—co-creator of TED Talks and Masters of Scale—time travels across cultures, continents, and centuries to investigate what we left behind: Wisdom systems for communal awe and communal grief. Practices like the sauna, the festival, the epic physical challenge.
What cutting-edge neuroscience, cell biology, and psychology are now confirming is as surprising as it is obvious: These practices weren’t primitive. They were sophisticated solutions to the oldest human problems. And the science is finally proving why they worked.
The mental health crisis. The climate crisis. The crisis of social division. The rise of AI challenging our way of life. At every rupture like his, humans have looked to the past to find their way forward.
The answers are already there. We just need to remember.
Pre-order books below, and RSVP for the event by clicking link at website!
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Wednesday the 4th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Poetry Book Club: Heavy Is the Head 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 November is Heavy Is the Head by Sumaya Enyegue.
“Where does all the grief go when it’s not tugging at your wrist?” Enyegue’s debut collection is an ode to girlhood, to Blackness, to generational trauma, sexual assault, and mental health.
This collection does not aim to heal anyone who reads it, but instead help them confront their own healing. Rather than sugar-coated bullets that enter you lightly, these poems are designed to hurt. They are for the girls with difficult names, the boys with softness at their core, and the people with neither. They are meant for the people who are Black, and the people who are not—because we are all tethered together by the heaviness of the human experience..
Pre-order books below, and RSVP for the event by clicking link at website!
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Wednesday the 4th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
WeHo Reads 2026: No Apologies: Readings by Marcus Clayton, Joshua Escobar, Rasheed Newson & Kaila Yu via WeHo Arts& City of West Hollywood – Online Zoom & YouTube Event
Four local writers explore subjects many books avoid, including race, desire, class, and moments when life feels chaotic.
What does a writer sacrifice when they soften their work to fit the mold? And what becomes possible when they refuse?
Marcus Clayton: Multigenre Afrolatino writer from South Gate and author of the inter-genre prose collection ¡PÓNK!.
Joshua Escobar: Poet, novelist, and screenwriter from the Inland Empire and author of the novel Demons of Eminence.
Rasheed Newson: Author of the national bestseller My Government Means to Kill Me and There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood.
Kaila Yu: Writer and featured panelist.
RSVP: Free registration is available through Eventbrite or via weho.org/wehoreads to receive the Zoom link
WeHo Reads is a literary series presented by the City of West Hollywood. The 2026 program is produced by BookSwell, a literary media company amplifying historically excluded voices. Additional support is provided by media partnerships with Book Soup and Los Angeles Review of Books. Attendees are advised that the program may include mature language and themes.
Where: WeHo Arts & City of West Hollywood
Date: Wednesday the 4th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: Online Zoom & YouTube Event
Website: Instagram Page
Shut Up & Write! with Los Feliz Writers at Alcove Café & Bakery – In-Person Event
Looking for some dedicated writing time? Come by our weekly neighborhood meetups:
Mondays @ 6:45 pm – 8 pm at Sidewalk Grill (NEW)
Wednesdays @ 6:45 – 8 pm at Bar Alcove & Bakery
All writers and all experience levels are welcome!
We’re starting a Shut Up and Write event on Mondays too, thanks to @jack_andcat.
Hosted by @literarypixie!
RSVP at link in bio.
Where: Bar Alcove & Bakery
Date: Wednesday the 4th
Time: 6:45 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1929 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: Instagram Page
Alex Pappadamas and Joan Lemay, with Jeff Weiss, & Friends of the Devil: West Texas Cowboys, Brown-Eyed Women, and Other Sunshine Daydreamers From the Songs of the Grateful Dead at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Alex Pappadamas and Joan Lemay, in conversation with Jeff Weiss, will discuss Friends of the Devil: West Texas Cowboys, Brown-Eyed Women, and Other Sunshine Daydreamers From the Songs of the Grateful Dead.
Friends of the Devil invites you to plunge headfirst into the dreamworld of the Grateful Dead, where music and myth intertwine and history dissolves like a tab on your tongue. This captivating exploration brings to life not only the songs that have enchanted Deadheads for generations but the stranger-than-fiction stories behind them.
The gang’s all here: An anonymous female convict in America’s notorious prison and Playboy bunnies on acid. Joseph Campbell and the Zodiac Killer. College revolutionaries lost in the desert and Bob Dylan wandering in out of the cold. In these pages, the abstract epic “Dark Star” gives shape to a movie gone mad, and “Terrapin Station” winds its way to Robert Hunter’s brain from sixteenth-century France via the hollers of Kentucky.
With Joan LeMay’s original paintings breathing fresh new life into the ramshackle, blacklight-ready aesthetic of the Grateful Dead, Friends of the Devil is a rich and rollicking journey—a gift for longtime fans and a delightful, informative, and often moving treat for anyone new to the band’s wild magic. Join us in revisiting the past, where every page is a step back in time and a ripple in still water, and every story shines like a glimmering stone on the golden road.
Alex Pappademas is the Senior Culture Editor of GQ. He has been writing about music, film, television and other forms of popular culture for over 20 years. He is the author of Keanu Reeves and co-author, with Joan LeMay, of Quantum Criminals. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and Grantland. He is based in Los Angeles.
Joan LeMay’s fine art has been exhibited internationally in galleries, museums, alternative venues, and public spaces in New York City; Los Angeles and Pomona, California; Seattle and Anacortes, Washington; Portland, Oregon, Provincetown, Massachusetts, London, England and Koln, Germany. Her work has been published in dozens of publications and multiple books, and she has collaborated extensively with independent filmmakers and creative agencies. A lifelong music universe person, her artwork appears on several album covers, and in her previous book with Alex Pappademas, Quantum Criminals, about the songs of Steely Dan. She is based in New York City.
Jeff Weiss is the founder of POW MAG and the author of the best-selling book of true fiction, Waiting For Britney Spears: A True Story, Allegedly.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 4th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-11-04/alexander-pappadamas-joan-lemay
David Kushner, with Siddharth Kara, & Ocean of Bones at Chevalier’s – In-Person Event
David Kushner, in conversation with Siddharth Kara, will discuss Ocean of Bones.
In 1827, the pirate slave ship Guerrero was racing across the Florida Straits toward Cuba with 561 kidnapped Africans in its hold when, in a battle with a British warship, it crashed onto the reefs of the Florida Keys. Nearly two centuries later, a group of mostly Black scuba divers set out to find it.
Chevalier’s Books is honored to welcome award-winning journalist David Kushner to celebrate the release of Ocean of Bones: The Hunt for the Pirate Slave Ship Guerrero, which tells both stories. He’ll be in conversation with Pulitzer Prize finalist Siddharth Kara. This event is free, and Kushner will sign books following the conversation.
The book moves between two men who share a surname but nothing else. One survivor of the wreck was later given the name Douglass Stewart. Nearly 200 years later, Vietnam veteran Ken Stewart founded Diving With a Purpose, a predominantly Black scuba organization, and set out to find the wreck and recover its story. Kushner spent five years reporting the book. He learned to dive with the group, explored the reefs and archaeological sites of the Keys, and traveled to Liberia to meet descendants of the survivors. With the wreck’s 200th anniversary coming next year, Ocean of Bones brings a forgotten chapter of American history back to the surface.
David Kushner is an internationally bestselling author and award-winning journalist whose stories regularly run as cover features in Rolling Stone, Wired, Outside and Vanity Fair. His Rolling Stone articles became the A24 film Zola, the Lionsgate film Silk Road and the Peacock docuseries The Battle for Justina Pelletier, and his memoir Alligator Candy became an award-winning podcast. Several more of his stories are in development, including Shadow Flyers, with Aaron Sorkin set to adapt and direct at Warner Bros., and Players Ball, a Lionsgate TV series with Daniel Radcliffe and Bobby Cannavale attached to star. His other books include Masters of Doom and Levittown. He has taught journalism at Princeton University and New York University. He was raised in Tampa, Florida, and lives in New Jersey.
Dr. Siddharth Kara is a New York Times bestselling author, a two-time PEN America finalist and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He is best known for Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives and The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery. He has held professorships at Harvard University, UC Berkeley and the University of Nottingham.
Where: Chevalier’s
Date: Wednesday the 4th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Dr. Pedram Navab, with Blake Boyd, & The Alchemy of Sleep at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
With a special musical performance by Vanagon!
Dr. Pedram Navab, in conversation with Blake Boyd, will discuss The Alchemy of Sleep: The Science, Mystery, and Magic of a Good Night’s Rest.
A comprehensive guide to the science and sacred mystery of deep rest. From neurologist, sleep specialist, and integrative medicine practitioner Dr. Pedram Navab, whose multidisciplinary approach has helped thousands reclaim the benefits of sleep.
Sleep is far more than a biological function—it is a sacred gateway to the unconscious, a nightly journey into creativity and renewal. In The Alchemy of Sleep, Dr. Pedram Navab blends rigorous neuroscience and sleep medicine with timeless perspectives from psychology, religion, and ancient traditions to revolutionize how we approach rest.
Moving beyond simple sleep hygiene and optimization, The Alchemy of Sleep explores sleep as a multidimensional phenomenon: a time of physical and emotional healing, spiritual insight, and personal growth. Through practical techniques such as shadow work, dream journaling, breathwork, sound therapy, and mindfulness, readers are invited to engage with sleep as an active process of self-discovery—one that shapes not only brain and body health, but also creativity, relationships, and spiritual well-being.
Addressing sleep disorders like insomnia, sleep apnea, parasomnia, and paralysis, as well as highlighting the shortcomings of today’s sleep culture—from the perils of chronic exhaustion to the obsession with data-driven sleep “perfection”—this book offers a compassionate and integrative approach to reclaiming true rest. It provides hope for anyone ready to move beyond surface-level solutions.
With immersive storytelling and insightful reflection, The Alchemy of Sleep invites you to rekindle wonder for the night and reconnect with ancient rhythms of renewal.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Wednesday the 4th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-11-04/dr-pedram-navab
Anansi Writers Workshop at The World Stage – In-Person Event
The Anansi Writers Workshop was founded in 1990 by Kamau Daáood, Akilah Oliver, Nafis Nabawi and Anthony Lyons. In 1993, Michael Datcher initiated the development of a three-part format for the workshop. Our tradition of a community workshop began in the late 1960s at the Watts Writers’ Workshop, where World Stage co-founder Kamau Daáood started his writing career. Hosted by Jessica Gallion aka “Yellawoman.”
- 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm — Formal workshop;
- 8:30 pm – 9:00 pm — Juliana Scott & He Said she said;
- 9:05 pm – 10:00 pm — Open mic.
Juliana Scott is God’s daughter, mother, wife, personal chef, poet, black woman, militant thinker, introspective philosopher, giver, servant, nature lover and yaadie. Her first collection of poetry is He Said She Said.
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 4th
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: Grab and Go Freestyle.
Where: Art Parlor
Date: Wednesday the 4th
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 Rooja Mohassessy 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.
Rooja Mohassessy is an Iranian-born poet and educator. Her debut poetry collection, When Your Sky Runs Into Mine, is an Elixir Press Award winner. Her poems and prose appear in Narrative Magazine, Nimrod, Southern Humanities Review, The Rumpus, and The Adroit Journal. Her work is anthologized in Colossus: Body and California Fire & Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology. Poetry media and podcasts that feature Rooja include NPR, The Hive Poetry Collective, and The Slowdown. She is a MacDowell Fellow and serves as a poetry editor for CALYX Journal. Rooja holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Pacific University.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Wednesday, the 4th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: Beyond Baroque Event Page
LiveTalks LA Presents: Michael Lewis & Blockers at Glorya Kaufman Performing Arts Center – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
An inside look at the early days of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, as told by the public servants it targeted and one of America’s best storytellers.
Michael Lewis will discuss his new book Blockers.
Blockers. It wasn’t a compliment. In the new Washington, it was the worst thing you could be―especially if you worked in the federal government and wanted to keep your job. A Blocker was a holdover, an impediment, someone who didn’t get the message―and, most of all, someone who didn’t belong.
Michael Lewis found six of them.
Blockers is the story of people who believed they had a calling, who were convinced they were doing something the country couldn’t do without, and then discovered they were no longer wanted. One kept Americans’ most sensitive tax data out of the wrong hands and another made sure that politicians and civil servants played by the rules. One figured out how to stop wildfires from destroying suburban neighborhoods, another helped uncover the mysteries of cystic fibrosis.
There was also a security guard.
It should come as no surprise that the writer who made subprime mortgages gripping (The Big Short) and who turned baseball statistics into poetry (Moneyball) could transform the first two years of the second Trump administration into a thriller about federal employees. But he does.
And he does something else. He puts before us a clear question: If these public servants can’t survive in government today, then what does that say about us?
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Glorya Kaufman Performing Arts Center
Date: Wednesday, the 4th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 3200 Motor Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90034
Website: LiveTalks Page
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg & Guest Margaret Elysia Garcia at The Ugly Mug – In-Person Event
Ben Trigg welcomes featured guest poet Margaret Elysia Garcia to present her work, plus an Open Mic.
Margaret Elysia Garcia is the author of the short story collections Chicana Noir & Other Stories, (El Martillo Press, 2026), Graft (Tolsun Books, Inc 2022), and the poetry collection the daughterland poems (El Martillo Press, 2023), of three poetry chapbooks Your House is on Fire (Daxson Publishing, 2026), Iconistas, Burn Scars, (Lit Kit Collective, 2025, 2022). She is the co-editor of the anthology Red Flag Warning: Mutual Aid and Survival in California’s Fire Country (AK Press, 2025), which was a 2025 Golden Poppy Award finalist. She was a Macondo fellow for fiction in 2025, and poetry workshop participant with Community of Writers (2021), Disquiet International (2024), and the Juniper Summer Institute (2026). She currently editing her second poetry collection and wants to start a middle-aged punk band.
$5 cover fee, cash only
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Wednesday, the 4th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website: Facebook Page
Book Club: The Persian: a Novel at Hermosa Beach Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join us for a lively discussion of The Persian by David McCloskey. Books are available for check-out at the library. For adults.
Where: Hermosa Beach Library, LACL
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Address:550 Pier Ave., Hermosa Beach, CA 90254
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/17375054
Kids Graphic Novel Book Club: White Bird at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Join us online for Kids graphic Novel Book Club to discuss White Bird by R.J. Palacio.
Now a major motion picture, starring Helen Mirren and Gillian Anderson! R. J. Palacio’s unforgettable graphic novel debut is a story about the power of kindness and unrelenting courage in a time of war.
Palacio makes her graphic novel debut with Grandmère’s heartrending story: how she, a young Jewish girl, was hidden by a family in a Nazi-occupied French village during World War II; how the boy she and her classmates once shunned became her savior and best friend.
Sara’s harrowing experience movingly demonstrates the power of kindness to change hearts, build bridges, and even save lives. As Grandmère tells Julian, “It always takes courage to be kind, but in those days, such kindness could cost you everything.” With poignant symbolism and gorgeous artwork that brings Sara’s story out of the past and cements it firmly in this moment in history, White Bird is sure to captivate anyone who was moved by the book Wonder or the blockbuster movie adaptation and its message.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 1 pm – 2 pm
Address: 6675 Magnolia Ave., Riverside, CA 92506
Website: https://cellardoorbookstore.com/event/2026-11-05/kids-graphic-novel-book-club-white-bird
Authors Reception for Filipino American Experience at Cal State Northridge – In-Person Event
We are closing out Pilipino/x American History Month with guests!
In collaboration with AAS, join us for an afternoon with authors, Dr. Joseph Bernardo and Aimee Suzara as we honor the power of storytelling, and celebrate the voices of the Filipino American community. We look forward to an inspiring afternoon of conversation and connection, with refreshments.
Joseph Bernardo is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Asian and Asian American Studies at Loyola Marymount University, known for his work on Filipino American history and community visibility. He has authored the book Filipinos in the San Fernando Valley, which explores the experiences of Filipino Americans in The Valley.
Aimee Suzara creates poetic and theatrical work to provoke dialogue and social change. Suzara is the author of the new poetry book Birth Language (Tia Chucha Press, 2026) which was a Martin Cruz Award/Golden Poppy Award finalist, SOUVENIR (Wordtech Editions 2014), which was a Willa Award Finalist, and two chapbooks, Finding the Bones and The Space Between. Her poems, prose and plays have appeared in Kartika Review, California Language Association Journal, Orion Magazine, Raising Mothers, Poets.org, Mom Egg Review, and Women Re-Creating Classics, among others. Her commissioned play The Real Sappho was supported by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation New Works program and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Where: CSUN, Whitsett Room, Sierra Hall 451
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 2:30 pm – 3:45 pm
Address: 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge, CA 91330
Website: https://news.csun.edu/event/author-reception-filipino-american-experience/
Let’s Make Zines! at Edendale Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The first week of November is L.A. Zine Week 2026! Celebrate by making zines with us on the patio. Plenty of supplies will be provided, bring your creativity and any extra materials you want to use. All ages are welcome. Email eden@lapl.org for more information.
Where: Edendale Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 3:30 pm – 5:30 pm
Address: 2011 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://www.lapl.org/events/lets-make-zines
FAHM Poetry Panel: Chris Santiago, Aimee Suzara & Angela Peñaredondo at Bel Canto Books – In-Person Event
Join us to welcome conversation with Filipino American poets, Chris Santiago (Small Wara Manual), Aimee Suzara (Birth Language), and Angela Peñaredondo (Nature Felt but Not Apprehended).
Born and raised in Minneapolis, Chris Santiago is the author of Small Wars Manual, one of Lit Hub’s 100 Notable Small Press Books of 2025, and Tula, winner of the Lindquist & Vennum Prize. His poems have appeared in The Nation, POETRY, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day Series, Copper Nickel, and American Public Media’s The Slowdown. A 2025 NEA Poetry Fellow and past fellow of the McKnight Foundation, the Mellon Foundation/ACLS, and Kundiman, he received his PhD from USC and teaches at CalArts. He lives in Pasadena with his wife and two sons.
Aimee Suzara is a Filipino-American poet, playwright, and performer based in Oakland, CA. The author of Birth Language (Tia Chucha Press, 2026) which was a Martin Cruz Award/Golden Poppy Award finalist and SOUVENIR, her mission is to create, and help others create, poetic and theatrical work about race, gender, and the body to provoke dialogue and social change.
Angela Peñaredondo is an inter-transdisciplinary poet, artist, and educator whose work moves between poetry, lyric prose, fragmented creative nonfiction and visuality to trace the junctures of gender and environmental injustice, settler colonialism, and the intimacies of survivorhood. They are the author of nature felt but never apprehended (Noemi Press), All Things Lose Thousands of Times (Inlandia Institute, winner of the Hillary Gravendyk Prize), and Maroon (Jamii Publications). They are an Associate Professor of Creative Writing.
Where: Bel Canto Books
Date: Saturday the 7th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 3976 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach, CA
Website: Withfriends Page
Overheard LA Book Club Book Swap! at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Bring a book, take a book. Custom bookmarks, haiku station, light bites & drinks, and more!
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-11-05/overheard-la-book-club-book-swap
Claire Crespo & Oralee: A Field Guide to a Young Human Who Learns to Glow in the Dark at Diesel, Off-site at Capitol X Irene Neuwirth – In-Person Event
Join us to welcome Claire Crespo to discuss Oralee: A Field Guide to a Young Human Who Learns to Glow in the Dark.
Oralee is an original fairy tale stitched together with words, paint brushes, and pencils. It is a story about a girl who learns how to live her life in a unique way. Told through colorful illustration full of imagination and enchanting imagery, Oralee will show its readers how to transform human life, find nature, and feel understood at any age. The tale is a tender offering from the heart of Clare Crespo, an artist, author, and fantasist. She has written two books on food, Hey There, Cupcake! and The Secret Life of Food, as well as a very popular hand-drawn calendar, Hurray Today. She has also written, produced, and starred in The Yummy fun Kooking Series, a wild children’s show, and has created numerous installations, large-scale dioramas, and sculptures for both public, private spaces and museums.
RSVP
Where: Capitol X Irene Neuwirth at the Brentwood Country Mart
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 38A, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://dieselbookstore.com/event/2026-11-05/claire-crespo-discusses-and-signs-oralee
YA Author Panel at Moonstone & Mist Bookshop – In-Person Event
Join Moonstone & Mist Bookshop in conversation with:
✨ Michele Kwasniewski, Rising Star (YA contemporary fiction)
✨ Kate O’Shaughnessy, A Season for Falling (YA romance)
✨ Rose Molina, A Very Fine House (historical fiction).
This is an opportunity to listen to a conversation with authors, ask the authors questions, and meet the authors after the panel.
This is the perfect event for fans of YA, contemporary fiction, romance, and historical fiction books and for teens interested in writing and working in the book industry.
Admission is free and the books will be available for purchase at the event.
Where: Moonstone & Mist
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 1913 S. Catalina Ave., Redondo Beach, CA 90277
Website: Instagram Page
Author Event: Gina Rollo White & Tactical Brain Training at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Gina Rollo White presents her book Tactical Brain Training: A Guide to Trauma and Stress Management For First Respondents and the Professionals Who Support Them.
Written through the lens of first responders, Tactical Brain Training offers practical tools for anyone living in a high-stress world. You don’t have to be a first responder to train like one. We may not all run toward the crisis, but we have all experienced moments when stress takes over. These tools help us reset the brain and nervous system so we can respond to what’s happening now – not react as if we’re still under fire.
This is a free event, but we hope you will consider supporting the author and {pages} by purchasing a copy of the book.
Gina Rollo White is the founder and CEO of Mindful Junkie, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping first responders, military personnel, and others manage stress, trauma, and the demands of a high-stress life. She is a mind-body teacher, educator, author and a nationally recognized speaker with more than 20 years of experience.
Gina holds a Master’s degree in Mindfulness Studies from Lesley University, where her graduate thesis, Mindfulness and Law Enforcement: An Effective Approach to Implementing Mindfulness for First Responders, laid the foundation of her work with trauma-exposed and high-stress populations.
For more than a decade, Gina has developed and delivered trauma-aware mindfulness and stress-management programs for law enforcement, firefighters, medical professionals, military personnel, and other high stress professions. She has trained hundreds of departments across the country and speaks nationally on resilience, performance under pressure, and trauma recovery.
Where: pages: a bookstore
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://pagesabookstore.com/event/2026-11-05/special-author-event-gina-rollo-white
Fresh Grounds Open Mic with feature Keayva Mitchell at Recreational Coffee – In-Person Event
We are a literary open mic focusing on original writing (no AI, no comedy, sorry!!). RSVP at the link in our bio. Sign-ups are first-come, first served in person beginning at 6 pm, readings begin at 6:30 in the courtyard.
Keayva Mitchell is a Black queer CODA living in Long Beach, California. Their work appears in Hooligan Mag, Wherewithal Lit, & they have been featured in the Los Angeles Times & elsewhere. Keayva is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at UC Irvine. You can find them talking with their hands & doing everything, everywhere.
Where: Recreational Coffee, in the Courtyard
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm (sign-ups AT 6 pm)
Address: 237 Long Beach Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: Instagram Page
Music Book Launch: Wild Tongue by Jonathan Leal, with Erin Graff Zivin, at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join us for a book launch celebration of Wild Tongue: A Borderlands Mixtape by author and musician Jonathan Leal! This event will feature a reading and discussion of Wild Tongue with Leal and co-speaker Erin Graff Zivin.
While supplies last, attendees will also receive free first-come, first-served swag: stickers, micro-zines, or physical CD copies of a collaborative album linked to the book, also available here: https://wildtongue.bandcamp.com/album/wild-tongue.
In Wild Tongue, writer, scholar, and musician Jonathan Leal invites readers to the Texas borderlands to witness contemporary sonic cultures and expressive forms of Latine struggle and world-making. Blending autoethnography, music criticism, and border theory into an epistolary mixtape, Leal depicts the borderlands as a generative place made by its inhabitants, a geography where creativity and cultural performance engage powerfully with politico-aesthetic issues, create communal identity, and challenge xenophobic and nationalist dominance. Across the mixtape’s contrasting “tracks,” Leal situates living artistries within longer, local arcs of borderlands creativity, amplifying Gloria Anzaldúa’s durable, pathbreaking observation, “Wild tongues can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out.” Combining lyric nonfiction, artist interviews, archival research, transdisciplinary analysis, and popular music criticism and production, Wild Tongue presents an exhilarating, embracing account of freedoms pursued between worlds.
Jonathan Leal is Associate Professor of English and Affiliated Faculty in Music at the University of Southern California. An acclaimed writer, musician, and scholar from South Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, his transdisciplinary work spans books, music, and collaborative arts projects. He is the author of Wild Tongue: A Borderlands Mixtape and Dreams in Double Time.
Erin Graff Zivin is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and Comparative Literature and Director of the USC Dornsife Experimental Humanities Lab. Her research, teaching, and curatorial work focus on modern and contemporary Latin American literature and media, the relationship between ethics, politics, and aesthetics, and experimental art and thought. Her next book, Transmedial Exposure: Toward an Experimental Humanities, is forthcoming in Spring 2027 from Duke University Press.
Pre-order books below, and RSVP for the event by clicking link at website!
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Entrepreneurship Book Club: Start With Why by Simon Sinek at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join us for Village Well’s newest book club, the Entrepreneurship Book Club!
This is a gathering designed to inspire, inform, and connect entrepreneurs and future entrepreneurs through conversations with guest speakers, curated books, and meaningful dialogue—bridging business education with culture, creativity, and community.
Our pick for our very first meeting on November 5th is Start with Why by Simon Sinek.
The inspirational bestseller that ignited a movement and asked us to find our WHY.
Discover the book that is captivating millions on TikTok and that served as the basis for one of the most popular TED Talks of all time—with more than 56 million views and counting. Over a decade ago, Simon Sinek started a movement that inspired millions to demand purpose at work, to ask what was the WHY of their organization. Since then, millions have been touched by the power of his ideas, and these ideas remain as relevant and timely as ever.
Start With Why asks (and answers) the questions: why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over?
Please RSVP.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
ALOUD Reading Series: Claudia Rankine, with Robin Coste Lewis, & Triage at Central Library, LFLA – In-Person Event
ALOUD is thrilled to present the celebrated poet, essayist, and playwright Claudia Rankine with her new work Triage. Rankine has expanded contemporary literature through her consciousness-raising, genre-defying writing. In her first book since the much-lauded American trilogy, Rankine presents full-color visuals, shifting into sustained narrative, memory, criticism, and essay to offer her most personal and emotionally resonant work yet.
Triage follows the turbulent friendship between two composite characters—the narrator and the theorist—self-identified sisters struggling to understand their wounded histories and their shared but separate lives.
Claudia Rankine is the author of eight books, including Just Us: An American Conversation, Citizen: An American Lyric, and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric; three plays including HELP which premiered at The Shed in NYC. She is also the co-editor of several anthologies including: The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind. In 2016, Rankine co-founded The Racial Imaginary Institute (TRII). Among her numerous awards and honors, Rankine is the recipient of National Book Critics Circle Award, Forward Prize, LA Times Book Award, the Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, the Poets & Writers’ Jackson Poetry Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, United States Artists, DAAD, The American Academy in Rome, The American Academy in Berlin, and the National Endowment of the Arts.
Robin Coste Lewis won the National Book Award for Voyage of the Sable Venus, her first collection of poetry. The book was also a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and it was named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker and The New York Times. Literary Hub named it one of the best books of the last twenty years. Her second book, To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness, was the winner of the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry and the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry. She is also the coauthor, with Kevin Young, of Robert Rauschenberg: Thirty-Four Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno. The former poet laureate of Los Angeles, Lewis holds a PhD in poetry and visual studies from the University of Southern California, an MFA in poetry from New York University, an MTS in Sanskrit and comparative religious literature from the Divinity School at Harvard University, and a BA in post-colonial literature and creative writing from Hampshire College. Her work has appeared in various journals, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Transition, and The Massachusetts Review. She is currently a professor of poetry and poetics at USC.
RSVP: Ticketed.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Mark Taper Auditorium
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: Eventbrite Page
Poets of the Sacred and Profane: Tell Me Book Launch at Chevalier’s – In-Person Event
Chevalier’s Book is pleased to present Poets of the Sacred and Profane: Celebrating Deborah Leipzinger’s new book, Tell Me
Deborah Leipzinger, Bill Ratner and Donna Spruijt-Metz, three well-published American poets hold forth November 5th in one of L.A.’s premier independent bookstores. They will utilize the Chevallier Books stage, their mellifluous voices, and their well-crafted words, to land butterflies on their fingers and perform for you.
Where: Chevalier’s
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2026-11-05/poets-sacred-and-profane
At Block Shop Textiles: Priyanka Mattoo, with Stephanie Danler, & How to Be Less Useful at Chevalier’s – In-Person Event
Priyanka Mattoo, in conversation with Stephanie Danler, will discuss How to Be Less Useful.
A delightful book about reclaiming pleasure in mid-life—a potent mix of self-help and memoir, from one of today’s wittiest, wisest voices.
“I have done everything right, and I have missed everything.”
When did our lives become entirely about efficiency and optimization? Especially as office workers, as parents, as consumers, as exercisers and healthy eaters. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all be less useful?
With self-deprecating humor, devastating insight, and bracing honesty, Priyanka Mattoo shares her own journey toward being a less useful human, to investigate why pleasure gets back-burnered in American culture.
Think about what we choose to systematically cut out or overlook as we mature: Solo travel. Dessert. Sweaty dancing. “Pointless” hangs with friends. And then there are the activities that used to be fun and have somehow lost their luster, usually in the decade between 30 and 40: Cooking (ruined by exhaustion). Bad tv (the algorithm). Other humans (bandwidth). Eating at restaurants (Instagram).
Mattoo takes on the zeitgeist, delivering invaluable, laugh-out-loud entertaining life lessons without an ounce of preachiness or pressure. She looks at where pleasure begins, what it serves, how we learn to repress it—in families, in friendships and romantic relationships, in jobs. And she shows us a way back: to identify and accept the things that give us pleasure, then to welcome them into our lives. What if, instead of being useful, we could all learn how to be happier, lighter, more present, more engaged? How to Be Less Useful is refreshing, funny, sparklingly astute, unignorable—a book for the current moment.
Priyanka Mattoo is the author of the memoir Bird Milk & Mosquito Bones, as well as a filmmaker and former Hollywood talent agent. She is a contributor to The New York Times and The New Yorker, and columnist at Vulture.
Stephanie Danler is a novelist, memoirist, and screenwriter. She is the author of Stray and the international bestseller Sweetbitter. She is the creator and executive producer of the Sweetbitter television series on Starz. Her work has appeared in the Sewanee Review, The New York Times Book Review, Vogue, Airmail, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, The Paris Review Daily, Time, Travel & Leisure, CondeNast Traveler, and New York Magazine. She lives in Los Angeles.
Where: Block Shop Textiles
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 3215. Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90039
Book Launch: Sagar Vasishtha & Tale of the Greater Fool at North Figuero Bookshop – In-Person Event
Sagar Vasishtha will present and discuss Tale of the Greater Fool.
Featuring music by Stuart Wheeler.
Akshay might have a cool sounding job, Environmental Control & Life Support Systems Technician (space janitor), and his workplace might look a little futuristic, AGNI Space Station 0X+7154 (space office), but he’s just like us, or, he’s just that one part of us. You know the part. The part that wants to hurl itself into the cosmos just to feel important. Scientists and golden-tongued frogmen will come to the rescue. But will it be enough? And that thing in Akshay’s throat. He’ll need that remedy. How does it go again?
Sagar Vasishtha is a published poet, writer, and director. He most recently served as a Staff Writer on season 4 & 5 of FOX’s ANIMAL CONTROL. He was support staff on Netflix’s UMBRELLA ACADEMY and HORIZON ZERO DAWN. He also served as a sketch director and staff writer for LA’s acclaimed comedy collective, SOUTH ASIAN AF. In 2025, he was named the Comedy Fellow for the Fox Writers Incubator Fellowship. His short film, WEED COUCH, has earned finalist honors at the Portland and Austin Comedy Film Festivals, and was a semi-finalist at both IndieX Film Fest and Indie Short Fest. Previously, Sagar toured his animated children’s musical RAPSCALLIONS in Massachusetts classrooms, blending storytelling and music to engage young audiences.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Cole Rockarts, with Sandy Hudson, & Fired Up About Unions at Skylight – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Cole Rockarts, in conversation with Sandy Hudson, discuss Fired Up About Unions.
Ever had a crappy job with an even crappier boss who made you feel disposable, powerless, and exploited? Whether you’re bagging groceries, writing code, delivering food, or cleaning hotel rooms, Fired Up About Unions is your invitation to join the labor movement and understand how young people are paving the way for unions that are more democratic, inclusive, and ready to fight.
Private companies and politicians try to convince us that unions are outdated institutions run by outsiders, but young people aren’t buying it. We know that unions are built by workers, for workers. Unions remain one of the most powerful tools workers have to fight for dignity, democracy, and a fair share of the wealth they create. In workplaces around the world, young people are leading a wave of bold union campaigns to win real power on the job. From coffee shops and classrooms to warehouses and hospitals, we are witnessing the next generation of workers coming together to win better pay, safer conditions, and job security in increasingly unstable economies. Fired Up About Unions is a practical beginner’s guide to what unions are, how they work, and why they matter. This is your call to action and guide to building worker power.
Cole Rockarts is a labor educator, organizer, and writer. They have worked in public and private sector unions in Canada and the US since 2016. They have written about unions, politics, and working people for RankandFile.ca, Briarpatch, and SpringMag. Fired Up About Unions is their first book. They live in Los Angeles.
Sandy Hudson is a multidisciplinary creative, writer, and activist with a talent for inspiring others to imagine just futures. The founder of Black Lives Matter-Canada, Sandy also co-founded the Black Legal Action Centre, a specialty legal aid clinic, which provides direct legal services and test case litigation for Black communities in Ontario, Canada. Sandy is currently based in Los Angeles and is Co-Executive Producer of the 8-part CBC documentary series Black Life: A Canadian History, a partner with Above the Palace Productions, and serves as the Director of Strategic Planning for the Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism. She is the author of Defund: Black Lives, Policing, and Safety for All.
RSVP
Where: Skylight
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://skylightbooks.com/event/2026-11-05/cole-rockarts-wsandy-hudson-fired-about-unions
Machinery of Night at Typewriters Anonymous – In-Person Event
Join us at Typewriters Anonymous for Machinery of Night an immersive poetry experience in celebration of newly published works.by: There’s Only Peace in Death Press: Dealer by Iván Salinas and Shake Hands with the Man in my Hand by Daryl Gussin. Performances by Duncan Cuervo, Phillip T. Nails, Rhiannon Cielos Chavez, Daryl Gussin, and a special set featuring electric guitar and spoken word by Cascajo (Iván Salinas + Raul Garcia).
Iván Salinas is a Mexican poet and zinerster based in the 818. He’s the co-founder of Drifter Zine and is current Programs Manager at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, California. His literary work has been published in The Acentos Review, Broken Lens Journal, Author Popups, and elsewhere.
Raul Garcia is a songwriter from Mexico City based in L.A. Influences include the songwriting of The Kinks, the guitar playing of Santana, the raw energy of the Minutemen, and the endless pocket of Parliament/Funkadelic. Whether he’s playing solo or with a backing band, Raul’s live set is his bedroom recording project come to life.
Daryl Gussin is a writer and musician who has been awkwardly standing around at punk shows for the last twenty-something years. Thankfully at some point in his late teens he decided to become a little more productive, and has been working on zines, setting up shows, and playing in bands consecutively since then. His focus revolves around the honest, bittersweet, and ultimately triumphant aspects of counterculture and its flavorful inhabitants. The heartbreaks, the implosions, and the defiant victories. Community over commercialism, create and destroy.
Rhiannon Cielos Chavez is a trans masculine whitewashed Mexican poet from Los Angeles, California. They enjoy chasing deer, drinking beer, and talking to their dead dad. Rhiannon has one chapbook out, Beer Hunter, which he prints from the Canon MX492 in his bedroom. Ask him if he can print you one (@rampage_doggo on IG). You can find his work in Jefferson Journal, Mobile Data Mag, Main Squeeze, zines & things, and more.
Duncan Cuervo is an Irish Mexican writer and librarian based in Los Angeles, California. When not suffocated with the weight of writer’s block, they spend their time on the bus adventuring the underbelly of their home and cultivating dying plants. When crushed by reality of needing a day job they find themselves working as a librarian trying to teach people how to use the Dewey Decimal system while also explaining its many shortcomings.
Phillip T. Nails is a lovechild born at the base of Mt. Diablo in Northern California. He was first put in touch with the muse when some Beat poets visited his high school at it was then, Nails decided he wanted to be a performance poet. Decades later, Nails continues in the lineage of The Beats and has studied with poets and performance artists Brett Bevell, Tim Miller, Mary Overlie and Guillermo Gómez-Peña. It is in these veins that Nails explores poetry and performance.
Tickets are free and you can reserve at website.
RSVP
Where: Typewriters Anonymous
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 650 South Avenue 21, Los Angeles, CA 90031
Website: Typewriters Anonymous Event Page
Live Talks LA Presents: Tony Shalhoub & Josie Adams, with Amy Brenneman, & We Thought They’d Never Leave at Glorya Kauffman Performing Arts Center – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Join us to hear Tony Shalhoub and Josie Adams, in conversation with Amy Brenneman, discuss We Thought They’d Never Leave.
We Thought They’d Never Leave marks the literary debut of Tony Shalhoub, the beloved actor who, for the first time, has gathered delightful stories, memories, and recipes to create this timely, feel-good collection.
Written with his daughter, Josie Adams, the book is a humorous and heartfelt portrait of place, family, and food. At its center is the annual Shalhoub summer reunion in Door County, Wisconsin—a tradition that pulls ten siblings, their children, and their children’s children back to the same stretch of land, carrying decades of shared history with them.
Tony Shalhoub is an Emmy, Tony, and Golden Globe winning actor whose career spans film, television, and theater. He is best known for his roles in Monk, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and Wings, and has appeared in dozens of acclaimed films and television projects. On Broadway, he has performed in The Band’s Visit, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, as well as Conversations with My Father, Golden Boy, and Act One. He has also received multiple Screen Actors Guild Awards, among numerous other honors recognizing his work on stage and screen. We Thought They’d Never Leave is his debut book.
Josie Adams is a writer, producer, and founder of House of Water, an independent production company focused on writing and development. She was adopted at birth from Omaha, Nebraska, and raised in Los Angeles. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two children.
A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Amy Brenneman is a founding member of Cornerstone Theater Company, known for its site-specific theater on themes of social justice.
Among her many credits as an actor, she recently starred in the world premiere of Larissa Fasthorse’s “Fake It Until You Make It” at Arena Stage in Washington D.C. Among her many television credits is the acclaimed “Judging Amy,” based on the work of her mother, the Honorable Judge Frederica Brenneman.
Brenneman’s been honored for her activism by Women in Film, the Brady Center, the California State Assembly and the League of Women Voters, among many others.
RSVP: Ticketed
Where: Glorya Kaufman Performing Arts Center
Date: Thursday the 5th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 3200 Motor Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90034
Website: LiveTalks 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 6th
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 6th
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: Once Upon a Time Event Page
Book Club: The Color of Water at Claremont Helen Renwick Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Join our monthly book club for an engaging discussion of our latest selection, The Color of Water by James McBride. For adults.
Find a copy of The Color of Water in the library catalog here. A limited number of copies will be located at the Claremont Library. Please contact the library at 909.621.4902 with any questions.
Where: Claremont Helen Renwick Library, LACL
Date: Friday, the 6th
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Address: 208 N. Harvard Ave N., Claremont, CA 91711
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/17630676
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 6th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Book Discussion: Sharon Udasin & Poisoning the Well at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us to welcome Sharon Udasin to discuss her book Poisoning the Well: How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America.
Sharon Udasin is a journalist and author who has long been delving into complex water contamination and conservation issues. Sharon was a Ted Scripps Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2019-2020 and received a SEAL Environmental Journalism Award in 2023. A graduate of both the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Journalism School, she has reported for numerous publications over the past two decades.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Meeting Room B
Date: Friday, the 6th
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://www.lapl.org/events/book-discussion-sharon-udasin
Book Launch: Daniel Bessner, with Nanda Vila, & Imperialist Realism at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Join us for the launch celebration for Imperialist Realism: Politics and Culture at the End of the American Century, by Daniel Bressner.
Daniel Bessner is a historian and journalist. He is currently the Anne H.H. and Kenneth B. Pyle Associate Professor in American Foreign Policy in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including Imperialist Realism: Politics and Culture at the End of the American Century (Zero, 2026).
Nando Vila is a producer and host. He currently serves as Head of Studio at Exile, where he oversees the studio’s film and television content strategy. At Exile, Nando produced In the Summers, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Other film credits include Los Reyes del Mundo, which won the top prize at The San Sebastian Film Festival, and Kill the Jockey, which is in Official Competition at The Venice Film Festival.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Friday the 6th
Time: 6:30 pm – 9 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events/6396520261106
Book Launch: Robert N. Watson, with Steve Dickey, & Shakespeare and Social Justice: Shakespear’s Tragedies at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join us for the launch of Shakespeare’s Tragedies: What Makes Them Great by Robert N Watson!
This event will include a lively discussion between Watson and emeritus lecturer Steve Dickey about the lasting power of Shakespeare’s works and how their messages resonate today.
A lively and provocative introduction to Shakespeare’s five major tragedies, revealing their profoundly sympathetic and illuminating exploration of human experience.
Shakespeare’s Tragedies illuminates the majestic beauties and subtle insights of the great playwright’s greatest works. Building from a helpful introduction of each tragedy, and progressing to advanced new interpretations, Watson reveals what these famous plays offer us as we confront the heartbreaking aspects of life and the redeeming virtues of our flawed humanity.
The culmination of Robert N. Watson’s distinguished career as a scholar and teacher, Shakespeare’s Tragedies explains, in fresh, accessible, and moving ways, why multitudes have treasured this playwright’s tragic masterpieces for centuries.
Robert N. Watson is Professor of English at UCLA, where he won the university’s top teaching prize. For years, hundreds of students filled Harvard’s biggest classrooms for his Shakespeare lectures. He has been a Fellow at Oxford and Cambridge, a Shakespeare commentator on NPR and the BBC, a poet in The New Yorker, and author of prize-winning books on Shakespeare and Renaissance culture.
An emeritus lecturer in the UCLA English Department, Stephen Dickey has taught, lectured, and published about Shakespeare, 16th century poetry, American interest in Shakespeare in the Civil War era, and Beat Generation literature. In 2016 he curated the Bard Goes West exhibition at the Los Angeles Central Library.
RSVP by clicking link at website!
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Friday the 6th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
La Semillas: A Spanglish Open Mic at La Colmena Market, Santa Ana – In-Person Event
Join us for poesia, musica, y historia en ingles, espagnole, espanish, nahuatl y mas.
If you want to share your poetry, música, art, try to arrive early!
Nos vemos!
Where: La Colmena Market
Date: Friday the 6th
Time: 6:45 pm – 8:45 pm
Address: 1901 W. Walnut St., Santa Ana, CA 92703
Website: Instagram Page
Roger Padilha and Mauricio Padilha & Jean Louis: Hollywood’s Bombshell Designer at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Roger Padilha and Mauricio Padilha discuss Jean Louis: Hollywood’s Bombshell Designer.
The untold story of the visionary designer who redefined Hollywood glamour, elevating costume design into a true art form.
Jean Louis’s creations illuminated more than 180 films across three decades and resulted in some of the most remembered garments during Hollywood’s Golden Age—from Rita Hayworth’s smoldering satin column dress in Gilda to Marilyn Monroe’s iconic nude illusion gown worn to sing “Happy Birthday” to President Kennedy. Jean Louis: Hollywood’s Bombshell Designer features dozens of film stills, fashion sketches, and movie posters illustrating the career of an artist that helped define the femme fatales, showgirls and ingénues of American cinema’s most famous films.
Arriving at a timely moment amid a renewed resurgence surrounding Marilyn Monroe’s legacy as her centennial approaches in 2026—an anniversary sure to heighten fascination with Old Hollywood style and the ever present influence of Jean Louis on the modern red carpet: Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, Beyonce, Sydney Sweeney, and Rihanna have all channeled Jean Louis’ bombshell styles recently and Kim Kardashian made headlines when she wore Monroe’s Jean Louis gown to the Met Gala.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday the 6th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-11-06/roger-padilha-mauricio-padilha
An Evening of Poetry at Heavy Manners Library – In-Person Event
Join us for an evening of poetry, featuring:
Charlie Stuip is a cook and a writer living in LA, whose work has been described by loved ones as confrontational, erotic and a little gross. If you want to collaborate on a video/theatrical/literary project send me an email at hellospeedstar@gmail.com!
Derek Talbott N/A
Lily Lady is a New York City-based multidisciplinary artist, writer, and filmmaker, who works across poetry, photography, and filmmaking, exploring themes like labor alienation, gender performance, care work, and modern intimacy.
Cassandra Floyd N/A
Nichole Katsikas is a Somatic Practitioner and Somatic Sex Educator, trained and certified in Somatic Alignment, Sexological Bodywork, and Level 3 Usui Reiki. She weaves over a decade of embodied experience into a holistic approach to somatic healing and erotic empowerment,
Janis Robertson N/A
RSVP for tickets.
Where: Heavy Manners Library
Date: Friday the 6th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 2115 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://www.heavymannerslibrary.com/events/an-evening-of-poetry-11-6
Fresh Friday Open Mic with L.A. Poet Society at Senor Fish, Eagle Rock – In-Person Event
Join L.A. Poet Society at Fresh Friday open mic every 1st Friday of the month at Señor Fish! A great lineup of writers. Hope to see you there.
AKoldPiece (@akoldpiece) (often stylized as AKoldPiece OfWork) is an American educator, writer, poet, spoken word artist, and host based in Los Angeles. He is author of The Weather Report, and a graduate of UCLA with a B.A. in History.
Jesenia Chávez (@chabemucho) is a proud Chicanita, public-school teacher, poet and storyteller. Her writing is inspired by her parents’ migration to Los Angeles, her teaching career, her sense of loss in the rapidly changing landscape of the city, and all the small moments in between when she can catch her breath and put pen to paper. She is the author of a poetry collection titled, This Poem Might Save You (Me) (Alegría, 2022). She co-hosts Que Me Cuentas: A mostly Latinx storytelling podcast.
La Neta (@abuelitosoytunieta) is an Indigenous, queer, and Two-Spirit creative artist, writer, storyteller, and community healer.
Bill Gallegos is at the helm of one of the leading environmental justice organizations in the United States, Communities for a Better Environment (CBE). During its 28 years of organizing in California, CBE has achieved groundbreaking environmental policies that have led to cleaner air and water in for low-income communities of color living near power plants, oil refineries and other large polluters. Gallegos brings with him nearly 30 years of experience as a social justice activist and leader.
Hosted by Cheyenne @overcast_eyes
With an open mic to all creatives. Free entry. Donations are welcome.
This will be our first mic of our birthday season! Celebrating 17 years! Let’s party!
Where: Senor Fish, Eagle Rock
Date: Friday the 6th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 4803 N. Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
Website: Instagram Page
Book Launch: Aimee Suzara, with Guests & Birth Language at Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Aimee Suzara, in conversation with guests Allan Aquino and Pam Concepcion, to discuss Birth Language.
Amiee Suzara creates poetic and theatrical work to provoke dialogue and social change. Suzara is the author of the new poetry book Birth Language (Tia Chucha Press, 2026) which was a Martin Cruz Award/Golden Poppy Award finalist, SOUVENIR (Wordtech Editions 2014), which was a Willa Award Finalist.
Allan Aquino graduated Cal State Northridge in 1998 as a Special Major in Asian American and Comparative Ethnic Histories. After attaining his Masters in Asian American Studies from UCLA, he began his career as a Lecturer and community organizer at CSUN in the Fall of 2000. He has also lectured at UCLA and Loyola Marymount University. A published poet and writer, Allan is the former president of the Filipino American National Historical Society (Los Angeles chapter) and founding member of the Larry Itliong Foundation through Education. His scholarship focuses upon Asian Pacific American history, media, contemporary issues, pop culture, and literary arts.
Pam Concepcion is an interdisciplinary artist from Metro Manila, Philippines, delving into poetry, screenwriting, graphic design, digital collages, and more. Her writing is heavily influenced by music, books, art, her experiences growing up as an athlete, her time in a Catholic all-girls school, and later, her bachelor’s degree. Her debut poetry collection is Unbecoming: Poems and Visual Art by Pam Concepcion (Riot of Roses Publishing House, 2026).
Where: Tia Chucha’s Bookstore
Date: Friday the 6th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 12677 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar, CA 91342
Website: Instagram Page
Gus Krieger, with Lian Dolan, & The Seventh Ribbon at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Gus Krieger, in conversation with Lian Dolan, will discuss The Seventh Ribbon.
A moving, whimsical debut love story of ‘what if’ about a grieving widow who attempts to rewrite her past with magical typewriter ribbons to try to save her husband from his unfortunate fate.
Alone in her snowbound oceanfront cottage, Caroline Ora mourns the loss of her beloved husband Forest, killed earlier that year in a violent hit-and-run. Once a celebrated poet, Caroline now spends her days drowning in grief … until an unlikely discovery changes everything.
Buried deep in her attic in a dusty wooden case, Caroline finds several ancient typewriter ribbons. Spontaneously using one to write a story—a simple “what if” wherein her anguish has loosened its grip—Caroline wakes to find it’s miraculously come true.
Moment by moment, word by word, Caroline sets about rewriting her life, resurrecting her husband through ink and memories. But as the lines between fiction and reality begin to blur, Caroline learns that every wish has its cost, and every miracle has its reckoning.
Riveting, funny and heartbreaking by turns, The Seventh Ribbon is an inventive and unforgettable love story.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Friday the 6th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-11-06/gus-krieger
How to Exi(s)t: A Poet’s Memoir: Truong Tran, with Mimi Tempestt at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center– In-Person & Online Hybrid Zoom Event
Join us for How to Exi(s)t: A Poet’s Memoir is an experiment in nonlinear autobiography by the author of the American Book Award-winning Book of the Other, Truong Tran. Poet and scholar Mimi Tempestt will join the author for a reading & conversation in The Wanda Coleman Theater.
The Poet’s Memoir is a generative workshop that approaches the narratives of the self through short, non-narrative inquiries. A memoir does not have to tell a life from beginning to end. It can be made of moments, snippets, fragments—parts of a story that, when brought together, begin to make a whole. In this workshop, we will write toward discovery rather than completion. The hope is to find a path through: to plant seeds, follow what emerges, and see what might grow. Through a series of short generative exercises, participants will begin gathering the pieces of a larger story—the story of one’s life.
Truong Tran is a poet, visual artist, and teacher born in Saigon, Vietnam. His book-length poetry project Book of the Other: Small in Comparison (2021) received an American Book Award in 2022. He is the author of seven other collections, The Book of Perceptions, Placing the Accents, Dust and Conscience, Within the Margins, Four Letter Words, 100 words (with Damon Potter), and Looking and Seeing/Seeing and Looking (with Damon Potter). He has also written the children’s book Going Home Coming Home and an artist monograph, I Meant To Say Please Past the Sugar. His poems and books have been translated into Spanish, French, and Dutch. He is the recipient of the Poetry Center Prize, the Fund for Poetry Grant, the California Arts Council Grant, and numerous San Francisco Arts Commission Grants. Truong is also a visual artist who believes that art, be it poetry, cooking, sculpting, and even gardening, are his ways of thinking through the conscious of the times we live in. Truong lives in San Francisco and currently teaches at Northeastern University, Oakland.
RSVP: ticketed
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Friday the 6th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: Beyond Baroque Event 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 6th
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.
NOTE: See site or flyer for details.
Where: Rapp Saloon at HISUA
Date: Friday, the 6th
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 7th
Time: 10 am – 11 am
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Middle School Book Club: X Marks the Haunt at Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person MG Event
Please join us to discuss X Marks the Haunt by Lindsay Currie. For ages 11 – 14.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Locked Rooms, when a centuries old crypt key is lost—unleashing a dark force—it’s up to the son of the local crypt keeper to end the haunting for good.
Where: Agoura Hills Library, LACL
Date: Saturday, the 7th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 29901 Ladyface Ct., Agoura Hills, CA 91301
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/17419196
Panel Discussion: Fiction & Publishing with Red Hen Press at Linda Vista Library – In-Person Event
Join Red Hen Press authors DC Frost, Pete Hsu, and EP Tuazon, alongside Media Director Monica Fernandez, for a discussion on fiction writing and publishing,
Where: Linda Vista Library, Pasadena
Date: Saturday, the 7th
Time: 11 am
Address: 1281 Bryant St., Pasadena, CA 91103
گروه کتابخوانی فارسی در کتابخانه وست ولی Persian Book Club at West Valley Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Please join us Monthly on the first Saturday, 11am – 1 pm.
:کتاب خود ا به اشتراک بگذارید
کتابی را که خواندید به دیگران هم معرفی کنید
تحلیل کتاب/ بحث و گفتگوی دوستانه
Where: West Valley Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 7th
Time: 11 am – 1 pm
Address: 19036 Vanowen St., Reseda, CA 91335
Website: https://www.lapl.org/events/grwh-ktabkhwany-farsy-dr-ktabkhanh-wst-wly-persian-book-club
Book Club: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store at Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Please join the discussion of the novel The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride. Copies are available at the circulation desk.
Where: Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Saturday, the 7th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 1874 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.lapl.org/events/book-club-36
2026 Indie Author Day at Anaheim Central Library – In-Person Event
Anaheim Library’s celebration of independent and self-published authors is back. Indie Author Day is a literary gathering, hosting a diverse array of activities. Whether you are simply a fan of local authors or are an aspiring author yourself, come and enjoy visiting over 25 tables featuring authors, poets, and comic creators. Attend workshops and panels facilitated by seasoned Indie Authors and small press publishing companies such as Lab Press.
SCHEDULE
11 am – 12 pm
Author Tabling
12 pm – 1 pm
Writing Scams and How to Avoid Them – Learn how to identify scams and differentiate from legitimate opportunities and what to do next, led by Matthew Stern.
Author Tabling
1 pm – 2 pm
Writing Comics vs Writing for TV/Film – brought to you by Doc Wyatt of Lab Press
Author Tabling
2 pm – 3 pm
Readings From Your Local Authors – enjoy local authors sharing excerpts from their work of poetry and novels.
Author Tabling
3 pm – 4 pm
Author Tabling
Small Press Publishers in attendance:
Lab Press
More TBA
Also, many featured authors: SEE Full schedule for names and bios. Donato Martinez & MORE!
Where: Anaheim Central Library
Date: Saturday, the 7th
Time: 11 am – 4 pm
Address: 500 W. Broadway, Anaheim, CA 92805
Website: https://www.anaheim.net/6272/Indie-Author-Day
2026 L.A. Zine Fest at Angel City Derby Warehouse – In-Person Event
Please join us for the 2026 L.A. Zine Fest at Angel City Derby Warehouse in DTLA.
See schedule for details.
Where: Angel City Derby Warehouse
Date: Saturday, the 7th
Time: 11 am – 5 pm
Address: 785 E. 14th Pl., Los Angeles, CA 90021
Website: https://www.lazinefest.com/
The Poet’s Memoir: A Generative Workshop with Truong Tran at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center– In-Person Event
The Poet’s Memoir is a generative workshop that approaches the narratives of the self through short, non-narrative inquiries. A memoir does not have to tell a life from beginning to end. It can be made of moments, snippets, fragments—parts of a story that, when brought together, begin to make a whole. In this workshop, we will write toward discovery rather than completion. The hope is to find a path through: to plant seeds, follow what emerges, and see what might grow. Through a series of short generative exercises, participants will begin gathering the pieces of a larger story—the story of one’s life.
Truong Tran is a poet, visual artist, and teacher born in Saigon, Vietnam. His book-length poetry project Book of the Other: Small in Comparison (2021) received an American Book Award in 2022. He is the author of seven other collections, The Book of Perceptions, Placing the Accents, Dust and Conscience, Within the Margins, Four Letter Words, 100 words (with Damon Potter), and Looking and Seeing/Seeing and Looking (with Damon Potter). He has also written the children’s book Going Home Coming Home and an artist monograph, I Meant To Say Please Past the Sugar. His poems and books have been translated into Spanish, French, and Dutch. He is the recipient of the Poetry Center Prize, the Fund for Poetry Grant, the California Arts Council Grant, and numerous San Francisco Arts Commission Grants. Truong is also a visual artist who believes that art, be it poetry, cooking, sculpting, and even gardening, are his ways of thinking through the conscious of the times we live in. Truong lives in San Francisco and currently teaches at Northeastern University, Oakland.
RSVP: ticketed
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday the 7th
Time: 11 am – 1 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: Beyond Baroque Event Page
Author Visit: Firoozeh Dumas at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Join us for a conversation and reading with Firoozeh Dumas, author of It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel and Funny in Farsi!
Firoozeh Dumas is a New York Times bestselling author who travels the world talking about shared humanity and doing so with humor. Firoozeh loves working with educators and interacting with readers of all ages. Her ultimate nerdy dream came true when she was a clue on Jeopardy.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Saturday the 7th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Pasadena Conservatory of Music: Musical Storytime with The Elephant and the Piano at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
The Pasadena Conservatory hosts a special musical storytime featuring The Elephant and the Piano by Colette Hiller. Caregivers and children ages 3-9 enjoy a story paired with musical accompaniment, interactive musical play, and a mini-concert featuring PCM students!
An incredible and uplifting true story about how music has healed troubled elephants in a sanctuary in Thailand.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday, the 7th
Time: 11:30 am – 12:30 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-11-07/pcm-musical-storytime
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.
Where: West Hollywood Library, LACL
Date: Saturday, the 7th
Time: 12 pm – 2 pm
Address: 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/17100771
Triple Book Launch: Sheila-Na-Gig Editions Authors at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center & Online YouTube Hybrid Event
This is a Free Program.
Join us for an afternoon in celebration of the launch of three new books by Elya Braden, Betsy Mars, and Penelope Moffet under Sheila-Na-Gig Editions! The new titles include: Dragonfly Puzzle Box by Elya Braden; Rue Obscure by Betsy Mars, and Think of it As Music by Penelope Moffet.
In Dragonfly Puzzle Box, Elya Braden’s luminous poems shine a healing light into the spaces of a life lived in pieces. From an early marriage born in hope and dissolved in divorce, a motherhood forged in the shadow of a flawed mother, to the rediscovery of self in the many-mirrored hall of relationships, each poem is a fragment of strength, a portrait of resilience. Like a kintsugi bowl, these poems celebrate the cracks, and answer the question: how does one create a life of beauty and purpose out of what was broken? The poet’s words are the molten gold connecting the past, mending the present, and illuminating a future of creativity, joy, and love.
Rue Obscure excavates the poet’s foundational relationships, poem by poem mining life in an attempt to comprehend corporality. It asks what connects us, here and eternally, while looking at love’s various manifestations and imperfections. With humor and compassion, Mars observes the manifold ways that humans strive, cope, and seek consolation in a sometimes-frightening, unpredictable world. Her first full-length collection, Rue Obscure explores how to find purpose and even joy when encumbered by regret, accumulating losses, and existential mysteries.
The poems in Think of It As Music address street sounds that intrude on a solitary life, memories of past loves, speculations about non-human creatures, and stories about friends and the natural world. Settings range from Southern California to Northern California, Washington state and Alaska. Mostly written in free verse, these lyrical, narrative poems combine details of an examined life with a passionate looking outward—toward spiders and birds, foxes and seals, and what happens between humans. Listen, say the poems. Take time to think, dream, be.
Elya Braden is a writer and mixed-media artist living in Ventura County, CA. She is the Founder and President of HaGomel, a nonprofit providing expressive arts programs for women who have experienced trauma and is an editor for Gyroscope Review. She is the author of the chapbooks Open The Fist and The Sight of Invisible Longing. Her work has been published in Anthropocene, Pine Row Press, Rhino, South Florida Poetry Journal, The Shore, Thimble, Wild Roof Journal, and elsewhere. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets. Visit her online at elyabraden.com.
Betsy Mars is a poet, compulsive photographer, and an editor at Gyroscope Review. Betsy’s poems are widely available online and in print in over 80 publications such as ONE ART, SWWIM, The California Quarterly, Thimble, and the anthology Signed, Sealed, Delivered: The Motown Poetry Review (Madville Press). Betsy is the author of two chapbooks, Alinea, and In the Muddle of the Night, the latter co-written with Alan Walowitz. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and were chosen as the winner of the Alexandria Quarterly’s First Line Poetry Contest Series and of The Poetry Salon’s Practiced Poets Prize. Betsy’s photos have been featured in Spank the Carp, Soul Poetry, and used in Rattle as an ekphrastic prompt. She is a lifelong poet, writing her first poem (at age 5 or so) in Portuguese––an elegy for her cat––while her family lived in Brazil. Betsy currently works intermittently as a substitute teacher, but her “mission” is poetry. And, apparently, supporting the local veterinary professionals.
Penelope Moffet is the author of the poetry chapbooks Cauldron of Hisses (Arroyo Seco Press, 2022), It Isn’t That They Mean to Kill You (Arroyo Seco Press, 2018) and Keeping Still (Dorland Mountain Arts, 1995). Born in Ohio, she has lived in Southern California most of her life. As a freelance journalist she interviewed many poets for the Los Angeles Times and other publications. She also worked as a publicist for non-profit organizations and as an editor, then held a legal secretary job for a quarter-century. By living very simply, she can now give as much time as she wants to writing, reading, hiking, swimming, drawing, painting, civic action and friends. She lives in a light-filled condo with a sweetly dictatorial elder cat named Emily.
RSVP: Ticketed
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday the 7th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm (Doors at 1:30 pm)
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: Beyond Baroque Event Page
Take Charge of Your Own Publishing: Zines, Books, and Anthologies with Jen Cheng at West Hollywood Library, LACL – In-Person Event
Poets and writers can take charge of their own publishing and literary careers. In this class, we will consider the pros and cons of different formats, discuss business plans, and book promotion strategies. For adults.
With the longer timelines and competitive nature of traditional publishing, self-publishing or starting a micropress are ways to get your work out there. At the end of this session, students will have resources and empowered analysis on options for individual publishing goals.
Sponsored by the Friends of the West Hollywood Library.
Jen Cheng is the Fifth Poet Laureate of West Hollywood (2023-2026). As an indie artist with a commitment to social justice, she has experience with various publishing projects, from zines for high school poets as part of her project as a Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets to other projects such as partnering with a hybrid publisher and starting a micropress. Cheng’s best-selling poetry collection Braided Spaces (2023) is re-released in 2026 with a second edition. She recorded selected poems from Braided Spaces as a limited edition EP vinyl record, Braided Spaces: Trenza 1. She is the publisher of a 2026 immigrant rights anthology, Butterflies Over Land. She is the creator and a mentor of the Fountain Fellows project, inviting emerging poets and writers to apply to the mentorship project for chapbook publication. Learn more about Jen Cheng’s projects online @jencvoice or JenCvoice.com.
Attendance is limited and advance registration is required. Please register every individual in your party. This will be used to save your spots in the program. We cannot guarantee availability for any unregistered attendees.
Where: West Hollywood Library, LACL
Date: Saturday, the 7th
Time: 2:30 pm – 5::30 pm
Address: 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/17290297
Drag Queen Storytime: Dia De Los Muertos at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Join us for a very special Día de los Muertos Drag Queen Storytime!! Our fabulous queen, Scalene OnixXx, will be here in deathly cool fashion to read an array of new spooky picture books! Get your adult tickets on Eventbrite! Kids attend for free!
Get your tickets at website link.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Saturday the 7th
Time: 3 pm – 4 pm
Address: 6675 Magnolia Ave., Riverside, CA 92506
Website: https://cellardoorbookstore.com/DQSTdiadelosmuertos
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: – Online Zoom Event
Saturday Afternoon Poetry’s monthly poetry writing workshop.
Since 1996, Saturday Afternoon Poetry has been here for you! We meet EVERY Saturday between 3 pm and 4:30 pm PST on Zoom (unless otherwise indicated).
All events are curated by Don Kingfisher Campbell.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry, Online
Date: Saturday, the 7th
Time: 3 pm – 4:30 pm
Address: Online SAP Zoom Event
Website: https://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
53rd Annual Dia De Los Muertos Celebration at Self Help Graphics – In-Person Event
Special Event: Altars, Live Music, Storytelling, Vendors, Art & More!
Self Help Graphics & Art is excited to announce that its 53rd Annual Día de los Muertos Celebration will take place just outside our Boyle Heights home, block party style, on Saturday, November 7, 2026! While we will reopen our doors in 2027, join us as we begin our homecoming to our Boyle Heights neighborhood.
Main Stage: Features include: Los Lobos, La Santa Cecilia. Mendez H.S. Mariachis & MORE!
Story Sharing Stage: (3:30 pm – 7 pm) Features include; Rosanna Esparza Ahrens, Virginia Carmelo, Ofelia Esparza, Nobuko Miyamoto, Michael D. McCarty, Margarita Gonzalez.
Drop-In Workshop
Muertos Market
NOTE: See website for details and more info!
Where: Self Help Graphics & Art
Date: Saturday, the 7th
Time: 3 pm – 10 pm
Address: 1300 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90033
* Outdoors on the block of Anderson Street, right outside Self Help Graphics & Art’s Boyle Heights building.
Website: https://www.selfhelpgraphics.com/diadelosmuertos
Back Door Poetry: Mike Sonksen & Traces, Places & Faces at DTLB Design District – In-Person Event
Long Beach has stories to tell. On November 7, the DTLB Design District launches Back Door Poetry, programmed by Poet-in-Residence Mike Sonksen (Mike the Poet) and featuring some of the city’s top poets and creative voices.
In conjunction with the CSULB Immersive Design Research Lab’s Design Happening “e-motion,” the afternoon begins at the IDRL, where an unexpected route will lead you to a hidden corner of the Design District for an afternoon of poetry, performance, music, and connection.
Featured Poets include:
Adolfo Guzman-Lopez (@aguzmanlopez) has been a reporter at NPR affiliate LAist since 2000. He reported and hosted Imperfect Paradise: The Forgotten Revolutionary, a true crime podcast looking into the death in 1994 of Chicano college activist Oscar Gomez. He has reported on L.A. politics, education, art, museums and other topics. His stories have also aired and published nationally on NPR, The Washington Post, and other media. His awards include the LA Press Club’s “Radio Journalist of the Year.” He was born in Mexico City, grew up in Tijuana and San Diego, and lives in Long Beach. He is the author of the collection California Southern: writing from the road, 1992-2025.
Hector Jimenez (@not_hector_jimenez)writes and jogs in Long Beach, CA. His work explores the place where humor, surrealism and tragedy meet, and he can spin a yarn in various formats from screenplay to book to comic.
Christian Lozada (@poetloz) near-accolades include two Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations, runner up in the Blossom Contest for BIPOC writers, and almost dated Super Bowl halftime star Jessica Alba (if an initiated conversation and immediate rejection count). He is the author of the poetry book He’s a Color, Until He’s Not (Moon Tide Press), a poignant collection exploring conflicting identities, loves, and traumas that weave the American experience, and co-authored the collection Leave With More Than You Came With (Arroyo Seco Press), and the photographic history book Hawaiians in Los Angeles (Arcadia Publishing). He uses his MFA to grow a culture of poetry in San Pedro and to teach his neighbors and their kids at Los Angeles Harbor College.
Danielle Mitchell (@imaginarydani) is an intersectional feminist, poet, and teaching artist. She is the Founding Director of The Poetry Lab, a community-based learning program that rallies in service of working-class writers around the globe. Danielle is the author of Makes the Daughter-in-Law Cry, winner of the Clockwise Chapbook Prize (Tebot Bach, 2017).
Charlie E Scott III AKA Philosophy (@philosophystyle) is an extremely accomplished and debonair poet whose professional credits include TV One’s Verses & Flow; Opening act for Grammy Award Winner Gary Clark Jr. and songstress Alice Smith; Featured artist for The Fly Poet Showcase; keynote Poet for the 2021 Black/Pan African Graduation for CSU Long Beach; Opening act for world renowned poet, Saul Williams on his ‘Martyr Loser’ tour. He is one of the Founding Members of LONG BEACH NEVERSPEAK!
Nancy Lynee Woo (@fancifulnance) is an eco-centric poet based in southern California who harbors a wild love for the natural world. She has released a full-length poetry book entitled I’d Rather Be Lightning from Gasher Press, as well as two chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in Salamander, Tupelo Quarterly, Radar Poetry, Stirring, West Trade Review, and others. Nancy has received fellowships from PEN America, California Creative Corps, Artists at Work, Arts Council for Long Beach, Plympton Writing Downtown, and Idyllwild Writers Week. She is the winner of the 2024 Brett Elizabeth Jenkins Poetry Prize. Nancy has an MFA from Antioch University and a BA in sociology and environmental studies from UC Santa Cruz.
librecht baker (@librechtwanderlust) is a writer, wonderer, wanderer, author of vetiver (Finishing Line Press) & Black Girl Magic Creative Series member.
Where: CSULB, Mosaic: Enter through IDRL – Immersive Design Research Lab
Date: Saturday the 7th
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 290 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA
Website: Instagram Page
Poetry Open Mic with Judah One & LionLike Mindstate at Machine Montclair, Creative Arts Collective – In-Person Event
LionLike MindState returns to the roots—poetry, art, culture, and community under one roof.
No big production. No gimmicks. Just voices, words, energy. and people coming together.
Pull up. Grab the mic. Hear something real. K the gallery. Shop the culture.
Hosted by Judah 1.
Where: Machine Montclair
Date: Saturday the 7th
Time: 5 pm – 8 pm
Address: 5060 N. Montclair Plaza Lane, West Side of the Mall, Montclair, CA
Website: Instagram Page
Author Talk & Book Signing: Jendia Gammon at Outpost Books LA – In-Person Event
We’re so excited to welcome @jendiagammon for an author talk and book signing!
Jendia will be sharing the stories behind Godfestation, her atmospheric Appalachian folk horror novella that explores themes of grief, loss, and strange wonder.
Jendia Gammon is an author, creative instructor, science communicator, artist, and producer. Jendia participates in public speaking, panels, and workshops for conventions and events around the world for creative instruction in writing and art. She holds a degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Jendia is also a science writer and an award-winning artist. She is the author of Godfestation, among other books.
Copies of Godfestation, as well as her middle grade choose-your-own-adventure book, Dungeon Crawl at the Mall, will be available for purchase and signing.
Plus, Jendia is bringing a batch of her famous brownies as an extra treat! 🍫✨
Where: Outpost Books
Date: Saturday the 7th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: 1010 ½ Fair Oaks Ave., South Pasadena, CA 91030
Website: Instagram Page
Sophia De Reeder & Callow at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Sophia De Reeder present and discuss Callow.
An enchanting, sapphic fantasy adventure for fans of Rachel Gillig and Stephanie Garber.
Witchcraft is a death sentence in the Kingdom of Scheragen. The ancient art of sorcery has been rooted out, and the women who practiced it have been either executed or banished to a remote continent. Only one witch remains: Ulyana, a prisoner of war kept alive for the sole purpose of aiding the King as his spymaster. An immortal temptress who, before the war, earned the nasty reputation of eating the hearts of men who had scorned her.
For twenty-three-year-old Evelynn Callow, a member of one of the wealthiest families in the Kingdom, cautionary tales of witches have long been the subject of her nightmares. So when Evelynn discovers that her younger sister has gone missing, she can’t help but assume that she has been abducted by the Kingdom’s enemies. But only Ulyana has the power to track down Evelynn’s lost sister, a fact that leads Evelynn into a desperate and potentially lethal bargain: in exchange for the witch’s magic, Ulyana will periodically feed on Evelynn’s blood. As they travel together into the unknown, Evelynn begins to question the reality for which her illustrious life has depended, as well as whether or not Ulyana may actually desire the contents of Evelynn’s heart rather than her veins.
“In a novel of witchcraft, heroism, and drop-dead romance, the real sorcery behind Callow is de Reeder’s storytelling. Once you’re under her spell, days melt, time blurs… de Reeder is a true enchantress of prose.” – Jane Lockwood, Former Editor in Chief of Love & Squalor
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Saturday the 7th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-11-07/sophia-de-reeder
Decolonize the Page Event: Book Launch of The Pomegranate Is a Grenade by Maha Hashwi at Jackson Market & Deli – In-Person Event
Join us to hear young Lebanese American author and poet Maha Hashwi, in conversation with her brother Atif Hashwi, will present her book The Pomegranate Is a Grenade.
The evening will feature Sudanese American poet Safi Elhillo and Japanese American poet Phil Kaye.
Where: Jackson Market and Deli
Date: Saturday the 7th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 4065 Jackson Ave., Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/decolonize-the-page-an-evening-of-poetry-and-music
An Evening with Margaret Elysia Garcia, with Désirée Zamorano, & Chicana Noir & Other Stories at Fables & Fancies – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Margaret Elysia Garcia, in conversation with special guest Désirée Zamorano, discuss Chicana Noir & Other Stories.
Margaret Elysia Garcia is the author of the short story collections Chicana Noir & Other Stories, (El Martillo Press, 2026), Graft (Tolsun Books, Inc 2022), the poetry collection the daughterland poems (El Martillo Press, 2023), of three poetry chapbooks Your House is on Fire (Daxson Publishing, 2026), Iconistas, Burn Scars, (Lit Kit Collective, 2025, 2022). She is the co-editor of the anthology Red Flag Warning: Mutual Aid and Survival in California’s Fire Country (AK Press, 2025), which was a 2025 Golden Poppy Award finalist. She was a Macondo fellow for fiction in 2025, and poetry workshop participant with Community of Writers (2021), Disquiet International (2024), and the Juniper Summer Institute (2026). She is currently editing her second poetry collection, finishing edits of her historical novel, collecting her notes and sources for a non-fiction project on body positivity, and wants to start a middle-aged punk band.
Désirée Zamorano was born and raised in Lynwood, California, a small town nestled between Compton and Los Angeles. She is the author of The Amado Women, Dispossessed, and Amorisa’s Cooking Pot.
Where: Fables & Fancies
Date: Saturday the 7th
Time: 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 50 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre, CA 91024
Website: Fables & Fancies Event Page
Byron Bowers, with Julie Seabaugh and Alma Har’el, & The Hardest Part of Schizophrenia Is Spelling Schizophrenia at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Byron Bowers, in conversation with Julie Seabaugh and Alma Har’el, discuss The Hardest Part of Schizophrenia Is Spelling Schizophrenia: A Memoir.
Comedian and actor Byron Bowers’ wild, funny, and fearless memoir proves that healing can be a psychedelic experience—and that sometimes the only way to tell the truth is to laugh about it.
Byron Bowers is a comic’s comic—the guy other comedians watch from the back of the room wondering how he just pulled that off. His sets dive into spirituality, race, the dollar, and manhood—and sometimes he wings half of it on the spot. Most comics turn pain into jokes. Byron turns it into something stranger and deeper. And it all started with his father, a paranoid-schizophrenic visionary who accidentally taught him how to break reality open.
Part confession, part stand-up set, The Hardest Part of Schizophrenia is Spelling Schizophrenia takes readers from a childhood shadowed by loss in Georgia to the surreal absurdities of Hollywood. Each stop along the way is shaped by survival: hoop dreams and a basketball scholarship, hustling crack on a Christian campus, getting shot at, and standing on the edge of both suicide and homicide.
Determined not to let his past define him, Byron made it his mission to turn pain into purpose. He started grinding in Atlanta’s comedy clubs, earning his stripes one late-night set at a time, before heading west where he became a regular at the legendary Comedy Store and began landing breakout film and television roles.
Byron dismisses the idea that reality’s rules can’t be rewritten. His story educates, enlightens, and ultimately inspires anyone who refuses to let adversity stand between them and the peace found in the journey itself.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Friday the 6th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://booksoup.com/event/2026-11-07/byron-bowers
Book Launch: Jim Ruland, with Grace Krilanovich and Adrian Van Young, & Mightier Than The Sword at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Join us to hear Jim Ruland, in conversation with Grace Krilanovich and Adrian Van Young, discuss his book Mightier Than The Sword.
Four college professors embark on a crime spree in Northern Arizona in 1993. They start by robbing an off-campus bookstore, but when things don’t go as planned, the book bandits are drawn into a bigger, bolder caper involving corrupt university officials, drug-dealing frat boys, Navajo ex-cons, and a mysterious golden pen. Steeped in the lore of the West, Mightier Than the Sword is a twisty, pulp take on the dirtiest job of them all: working as a part-time professor in a college town.
Jim Ruland is the author of the novels Make It Stop and Forest of Fortune and the short story collection Big Lonesome. He is also the Los Angeles Times–bestselling author of Corporate Rock Sucks: The Rise & Fall of SST Records, and the co-author of Do What You Want with Bad Religion and My Damage with Keith Morris. He is a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times, a columnist for Razorcake fanzine, and a veteran of the US Navy.
Grace Krilanovich is the author of the novels The Orange Eats Creeps (2010), a finalist for the Believer Book Award and the Indie Bookseller’s Choice Award, and Acid Green Velvet (2026). Her work has appeared in Black Clock, The Rumpus, The Comics Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She was a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree in 2010.
Adrian Van Young is the author of five books of fiction—most recently, Family Thing, a story collection coming from Black Lawrence Press in October 2027. His fiction, non-fiction & criticism have been published or are forthcoming in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, Conjunctions, Guernica, BOMB, Granta, McSweeney’s and The New Yorker online, among others. He teaches part-time in the MFA Program at University of New Orleans, is a professional freelance editor, and currently splits his time between New Orleans and Paris, where he lives with his family. More at: adrianvanyoung.com.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Saturday the 7th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figeroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: Eventbrite Page
The Griot Café: Book Launch with Genesis Ripley, hosted by Tommy Domino at Shades of Afrika – In-Person Event
Join us every first Saturday of the month for spoken work, open mic, poetry, and music.
Host Tommy Domino welcomes Genesis Ripley to present and discuss her book Fugitive.
Genesis Ripley is a Black, queer, genderless poet, speaker, and cultural re-imaginist, and the inspiritor of The Technologies of Consent ~ a living practice exploring consent as a way of relating, listening, and being changed by what we witness. Through talks, conversations, workshops, poetic offerings, and ceremonies genesis invites communities into deeper accountability, self-witnessing, and relational integrity beyond hierarchy , coersion and compliance. Their work weaves poetry, lived experience, and ceremonial attention to reimagine conflict, intimacy, governance, and belonging as consensual architectures of care. genesis is the author of Mythology of a Dragon and the forthcoming fugitive, and the founder of Flame Tongue Press.
You do not want to miss this show and early arrival is suggested.
Pull up.
Where: Shades of Afrika (inside)
Date: Saturday the 7th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)
Address: 1001 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 99082
Website: Instagram Page
Typewriter Poets On Demand with L.A. Poet Society at Melrose Trading Post – In-Person Event
Poets with L.A. Poet Society participate in providing typewritten poetry on demand for customers each Sunday at Melrose Trading Post.
No cover. Donations appreciated.
Where: Melrose Trading Post
Date: Sunday the 8th
Time: 11 am – 5 pm (specific times and stage may vary)
Address: 7850 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046
Website: Instagram Page
Book Event: Azie Tesfai & You’re a Superhero! at Octavia’s Bookshelf – In-Person Event
We are thrilled to welcome @azietesfai to the shop on Sunday November 8th at 11:00am for a reading and signing of her latest book, You’re a Superhero!
This event is perfect for kids ages 5-7 and for anyone who might need a reminder that the qualities we admire in our superheroes can already exist within us.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Where: Octavia’s Bookshelf
Date: Sunday the 8th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 7850 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046
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: Sunday the 8th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
The Writer’s Coffeehouse at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
The Writers Coffeehouse is open to everyone. The Coffeehouse is a bunch of writers sitting around talking about writing…with coffee. No agenda, just chatting about the latest trends in the industry, the craft of writing, markets, pitching and selling, conquering frustration, defeating writers block, and all of the good things that come from the community of writers. No previous publishing experience necessary. The Writers Coffeehouse attracts everyone, from absolute beginners to award-winners and bestsellers.
The Coffeehouse is hosted by Lisa Diane Kastner, founder of Running Wild Publishing.
Lisa Diane Kastner is the Founder of Running Wild, LLC, a content creation, distribution, and licensing company. Featured in FORBES and several other publications, she’s been named to multiple “Best of”s. A writer and editor for more than twenty years, she has identified talent like the multimillion selling, global phenomenon Jamie Ford’s Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Reuben “Tihi” Hayslett’s Dark Corners which was named one of the best of the year by Kirkus Reviews, and Shay Galloway’s completely groundbreaking The Valley of Sage and Juniper, among many others.
She has been mentored by such legends as the National Book Award winner and Pulitzer Prizewinner Percival Everett; multiaward winning and NYTimes bestseller Jonathan Maberry; and multi-award winning and NYTimes bestseller Jackie Mitchard.
Lisa began Running Wild with the belief that we can change the world through story. A noted author in her own right, Lisa was a Drexel Scholar, obtained her BS from Drexel University, her MBA from Pennsylvania State University, and her MFA from Fairfield University.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Sunday the 8th
Time: 12 pm – 3 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd. #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: Event Page
Book Launch: Rinat Hadad Siegel & Mixed Up Challahs at Children’s Book World – In-Person Event
Join us at Children’s Book World for a special launch party for author Rinat Hadad Siegel’s debut picture book, Mixed-Up Challahs.
Celebrate a lesser-known Sephardic/Mizrahi Jewish cultural tradition in this lovely tale of a village’s single communal oven, in which everyone’s challah is baked.
The women of Tripoli are poets and singers. When they bake their challah weekly, they knead in notes of hope and their deepest wishes. But what happens when everyone’s bread gets mixed up? What will become of each family’s wishes? It takes a girl with a big imagination to solve the problem!
Rinat Hadad Siegel traces her roots to the Garyan region in the mountains of Libya. Her grandmother lived in Tripoli before moving to Israel, where Rinat was born. Mixed-Up Challahs draws from the rich and vibrant traditions of Mizrahi Jewry and family lore. She has occasionally mixed up chocolate-chip challah with raisin challah, much to the dismay of her children. Rinat lives in Southern California. Find more information at rinathadadsiegel.com, or you can follow her on Instagram at @rinathadadsiegel.
Illustrator Stacy Innerst was born in Los Angeles and grew up studying painting in the high desert of New Mexico. He is the illustrator of many award-winning books for children, including The Book Rescuer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and The Music in George’s Head. Stacy’s picture books have been recognized as Best Books of the Year by Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews. He has exhibited at galleries and institutions throughout the United States and abroad, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the California Center for the Arts, and the Museum of Illustration at the New York Society of Illustrators. Stacy lives in Pittsburgh with his family.
Preorder personalized copies for shipping anywhere in the U.S. or pick up in person at the book launch.
Where: Children’s Book World
Date: Saturday the 7th
Time: 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm
Address: 10580 1/2 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064
Website: https://childrensbookworld.com/event/2026-11-08/mixed-challahs-book-launch-author-rinat-hadad-siegel
Cellar Door Book Club: Hamnet at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person & Online Zoom Hybrid Event
Join us to discuss Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague by Maggie O’Farrell.
England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on.
A young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.
Hamnet is mesmerizing, seductive, impossible to put down—a magnificent leap forward from one of our most gifted novelists.
Maggie O’Farrell was born in Northern Ireland in 1972. Her novels include Hamnet (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award), After You’d Gone, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, The Hand That First Held Mine (winner of the Costa Novel Award), and Instructions for a Heatwave. She has also written a memoir, I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death. She lives in Edinburgh.
Where: Cellar Door Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 8th
Time: 2 pm – 3 pm
Address: 6675 Magnolia Ave., Riverside, CA 92506
Website: https://cellardoorbookstore.com/event/2026-11-08/cellar-door-book-club-hamnet
Book Launch: Truong Tran, with Prageeta Sharma and Mimi Tempestt, & How to Exi(s)t: A Poet’s Memoir at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
A neurodivergent gay war refugee navigates academia, racism, and indeed life itself as a poet, artist, and teacher.
Truong Tran, in conversation with Prageeta Sharma and Mimi Tempestt, will discuss How to Exi(s)t: A Poet’s Memoir.
How to Exi(s)t: A Poet’s Memoir is an experiment in nonlinear autobiography by the author of the American Book Award-winning Book of the Other, Truong Tran. Beginning in the present—at a writing residency in the aftermath of this success—How to Exi(s)t moves back and forth in time, in bursts of brief poetic essays grouped by theme. The duality of the title thematizes a dilemma at the heart of the book: how does a poet separate himself from the academic career to which he’s devoted his professional life and what does being a teacher mean outside of it?
Unpeeling the layers between present and past, Tran proceeds in reverse as he explores crucial events and figures in his life, including the reaction to the publication of Book of the Other, the dynamics of whiteness and power framing his repeated rejection for a tenure track position, the profound effect of his dyslexia on his evolution as a writer and artist, the repercussions of being outed by a newspaper after winning an undergrad poetry prize, traumatic episodes growing up in the Vietnamese diaspora in San Jose, and complicated relationships with both his family and his chosen family. Attempting to fathom these experiences and connect them to his present self, Tran examines and reexamines key details rather than dispensing with them in neat anecdotes, reflecting the volatile process of imagination and memory.
Unsparing, even caustic in its instance on racism as a dominant note of American life, but marked by surprising tenderness and humor, How to Exi(s)t is a compelling portrayal of Tran’s pedagogical philosophy as well as an interrogation of a poetic language that conceals as much as it reveals.
Where: Vroman’s Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 8th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2026-11-08/truong-tran
Book Launch: Vince Thompson, with Bill Simon, & The Lockup Period at Chevalier’s – In-Person Event
Chevalier’s Books welcomes Vince Thompson for a conversation about his debut novel, The Lockup Period, a Silicon Valley thriller. He will be joined by his longtime friend Bill Simon. The two have known each other through their careers in media and entertainment. This event is free.
Mario Kennedy wants badly to be part of tech’s in-crowd, but an unfair criminal record and a job delivering pizzas keep him on the outside. When MenuAi, a startup where he holds advisory shares, announces it’s going public, he finally has a shot at a fortune, as long as he can make it through the ninety-day lockup period and the stock lives up to the hype. Pushing that hype is Ravi Singh, an up-and-coming venture capitalist determined to land his first unicorn at any cost. Covering the frenzy is Jamie Villanueva, a young reporter torn between breaking the story and settling a personal score. Then, on the night of the IPO, a body turns up in the CEO’s apartment. If they expose the truth, everything falls apart. If they hide it until the lockup expires, they all walk away rich.
BookLife named the novel an Editor’s Pick and praised its sharp take on Silicon Valley’s obsession with money, status and image. Steve Netter of Best Thriller Books called it “compelling, dynamic, and at times farcical, writing that readers don’t need to be investors or finance types to get hooked, because at heart it’s a character-driven story about the choices Mario faces on his way to a payday.
Vince Thompson has been a waiter on the Sunset Strip, a door-to-door seller of television advertising, an executive at major media companies, a CEO, and a public-company board member. Along the way, he did business with venture investors, celebrities and, without knowing it at the time, a few crime figures, all of which inspired The Lockup Period. He is an angel investor and former Silicon Valley startup executive. He and his wife, Jackie, split their time between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, where he is finishing his next novel, another thriller set in the world of startups.
Bill Simon is the former global managing partner of Korn/Ferry International’s media and entertainment practice. There he recruited senior executives across film, television, home entertainment, music, publishing, games and digital platforms, and he also served on the firm’s worldwide board of directors. He was named one of the top 200 executive recruiters in the world in Nancy Garrison-Jenn’s survey, and CableFax Magazine ranked him among the 35 most influential people in cable. Before joining Korn/Ferry in 1988, he founded the entertainment division at the investment bank Communications Equity Associates, and he was a vice president at Heron Communications, where he helped build its home video company, Media Home Entertainment. Earlier in his career, he served as deputy staff secretary to President Jimmy Carter. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley.
Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 8th
Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://chevaliersbooks.com/event/2026-11-08/book-launch-lockup-period-vince-thompson
Author Event: Nils Grevillius & The Last Lawman at Flintridge Bookstore – In-Person Event
Nils Grevillius will present and discuss The Last Lawman.
After many years as a soldier, spy, contractor, Pinkerton agent, and private detective, Nils Grevillius can finally tell the whole story of his life in this high-risk profession. He has thirty-plus years as a private detective in Los Angeles under his belt. In The Last Law Man, he shares how cases are undertaken, the methods used to see without being seen, and how to hear without being heard. The secrets of clients forever protected, Nils lays bare the bad acts, corrupt institutions, and protected criminals, which brought his desperate people in desperate times.
Born to ruling class progressives, Nils couldn’t dash his parents’ hopes fast enough. Ejected from school, enlisted in the military at seventeen, Grevillius went from Scout to Counterintelligence Operative to the Pinkerton Service in Metropolitan Los Angeles. Having failed at every single thing, he finally found his way, starting his own detective and clandestine service in 1992. Grevillius has executed jobs – involving kidnappings, Romanes forgotten murders, and conflicts of interest – on every continent,. Keeping a network of colleagues, contacts, informants, and operators, Grevillius has been able to bring cases in when every public agency gave up, or was too conflicted to act. From hunting down witnesses to a Hollywood kidnapping, or secreting a family with their last remaining assets from a hostile nation in Africa, Nils Grevillius has made the cases others could not.
Where: Flintridge Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 8th
Time: 4 pm – 5:30 pm
Address: 858 Foothill Boulevard, La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011
Second Sunday Poetry Series: Sean Dafydd at The Studio Theatre at St. Denis Building – In-Person Event
This Open Mic poetry show, hosted by Alex M. Frankel, happens on the second Sunday of every month. Great poets perform their work, sell and sign books, plus mingle with audience members and open mic participants.
Sean Dafydd is a native Californian who believes that all beings possess the capability to become enlightened within their lifetime. He believes in the power of art, music, poetry, and meaningful connection to help raise the vibrational state of our communities to one of unconditional love for ourselves, each other, and the world we share. He believes in the personal freedom of all living beings to live a life of authenticity free from the constraints of societal expectations.
Where: The Studio Theatre at St. Denis Building
Date: Sunday the 8th
Time: 5 pm – 7 pm
Address: 3433 Cahuenga Blvd West, Los Angeles 90068 (Near Universal Studios)
Website: https://www.secondsundaypoetry.com/
Book Launch: R.K. Maril, with Kate Sosin, & A Queer Guide to Saving American Democracy at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
R.K. Maril, in conversation with Kate Sosin, will discuss A Queer Guide to Saving American Democracy.
Since the early 2000s, American courts and legislatures have delivered a series of generation-defining LGBTQ legal victories. Today, this progress and the very institutions that made it possible are under attack. A Queer Guide to Saving American Democracy is an introduction to this democratic crisis, speaking directly to the queer and transgender people navigating the intensifying political and cultural fault lines. It argues that the current denigration of queer and transgender lives in the US is a symptom of the broader degradation of American democracy, representing the newest threat of American fascism. By centering queer and trans identity in the larger history of authoritarianism, the book highlights the strategic villainization of nonconforming groups as a tool to consolidate power and political control. In response, this book empowers readers to adopt pro-democracy frameworks rooted in the defiant authenticity and stubborn joy of queer existence, forging pathways committed to transformative social change.
Robin K. Maril is a writer and Constitutional Law professor based in Portland, Oregon. Her work engages questions of democratic integrity and the growing threat of fascism and authoritarian regimes within America. She also hosts the podcast A Queer Guide to Saving Democracy. She is a widely recognized scholar on LGBTQ rights and policy, Executive power, and the law of democracy. Before teaching, Robin worked in the LGBTQ civil rights movement at the Human Rights Campaign for nearly a decade. Robin began her legal career as a Presidential Management Fellow at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. She and her wife have two sons, two dogs, and an unknown number of snails. She is a proud graduate of the University of Oklahoma and Temple University Beasley School of Law.
Kate Sosin is a veteran LGBTQ+ reporter who has covered everything from presidential campaigns to puppy mills. They have done deep dive investigations into prison abuse for NBC News, interviewed pop star Demi Lovato, written a totally believable news article about trans people and ghosts, and won many awards you’ve never heard of. Their work has been published by a lot of places you have heard of like, NPR, The 19th, Teen Vogue, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Texas Tribune, PBS NewsHour, Chicago Magazine, USA Today, Yahoo and MSN. They live in Los Angeles, CA.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Sunday the 8th
Time: 5:30 pm – 7 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90232
Heather Berg & Notes from the Sex Worker at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Drawing on interviews with sex workers and their political and creative writings, Notes from the Sex Worker highlights the unruly thinkers who are at the vanguard of radical theorizing on family, work, the state, and community care.
Heather Berg is Associate Professor of Labor Studies and Gender Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and is the author of Porn Work: Sex, Labor, and Late Capitalism.
In conversation with Chanelle Gallant.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Sunday the 8th
Time: 6 pm – 9 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events/6487120261108
Poets for Palestine & People’s Marketplace: Poetry & Open Mic at Midnight Books (New Location) – In-Person Event
Our sister Lebanon: this mic is for you! 🇵🇸♥️🇱🇧
🕊️ Poets for Palestine and The Peoples Marketplace are coming together for a special open mic for Lebanon at Midnight Books’ NEW LOCATION.✨
🕊️ Our evening will consist of a feature performance by Lebanese poet, rapper, and producer Hadi Mroueh @doctororgans
🕯️ A sound bath & meditation by @myssmindfuls
🎥 A screening of a Lebanese 🇱🇧 short film by @hollyoudclub
🎙️ And of course, an open mic for all poets to share their words!
🕊️ Plus, we’ll have many exciting and delicious vendors joining us to make the evening extra special, including @drinklaleh @jacksonmarket @rabbitsforfalasteen and @peaceoffensive ✨
🕊️ $5-$10 suggested donation, all proceeds go directly to Wasim and his family, a young Palestinian from the city of Rafah.
🕊️Come gather with us as we celebrate our sister Lebanon. Our solidarity knows no borders! 🇵🇸🇱🇧
Where: Midnight Books (New Location)
Date: Sunday the 8th
Time: 7 pm –11 pm
Address: 607 E. 4th St., Los Angeles, CA 90013
Website: Instagram Page
PRB Fall Benefit Party at Poetic Research Bureau – In-Person Event
Join us on Sunday at the Poetic Research Bureau for a special celebration in support of our year-round free programming.
This year, we’re turning the mic over to artists from other disciplines—musicians, filmmakers, comedians, and visual artists—each invited to read poems of their own or ones they love. We’re excited to hear—in Cecilia Vicuña’s words—what poetry is to them.
For 26 years, PRB has flourished as a site for poetry and critical inquiry thanks to the poets, collaborators, audiences, and community who continue to support our vision. By attending this benefit, either by ticket purchase, donation, or membership sign-up, you can help sustain our free programming in 2027.
Our Moonlighting Benefit Party will feature performances by Maddy Kelly, Los Super Elegantes, Mike Mills, Chris Cohen, Julie Tolentino, and more.
Maddy Kelly is a 30-year-old Canadian stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and producer based in New York City. She is known for her unique comedic voice and has been featured in prominent publications like The New Yorker and The New York Times, as well as for her work on shows such as “This Hour Has 22 Minutes” and “Resident Alien.”
Los Super Elegantes is an artistic duo founded in San Francisco, California in 1995 by Mexican Milena Muzquiz and Argentine Martiniano Lopez Crozet while attending courses at California College of Fine Arts. Although primarily known for their music, L.S.E. have been equally active in the visual and performing art scenes.
Mike Mills N/A
Chris Cohen is an American musician born in 1975 in Los Angeles, known for his work as a singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. He has released several solo albums, including “Overgrown Path” (2012), “As If Apart” (2016), and “Chris Cohen” (2019), and was a member of the band Deerhoof from 2002 to 2006.
Julie Tolentino (Filipinx-Salvadoran, she/they interchangeably) is an interdisciplinary artist working in durational performance, installation, scent & object-making, texts. Her work has exhibited in the 2022 Whitney Biennial (with Ivy Kwan Arce), Participant, Inc., The Kitchen, Performance Space New York, The New Museum, Aspen Art Museum, Nevada Art Museum, Thessaloniki Biennial, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Museum of Contemporary Art – Macedonia, Commonwealth & Council, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions-LACE, Volume, Fulcrum Arts, homeLA, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, The Lab (SF) amongst others. Collaborative projects include Visual AIDS Duets Book series with Kia LaBeija; Movements in Blue with the What Would An HIV Doula Do? Collective; and the Safer Sex Handbook with Cynthia Madansky.
See you on November 8!
Tiered Tickets are available. See site for details.
Where: Poetic Research Bureau
Date: Sunday the 8th
Time: 7 pm –10 pm
Address: 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://www.poeticresearch.com/events/prb-moonlighting-benefit-party
Fantasy Romance LA Book Club: To Shape a Dragon’s Breath at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Fantasy Romance book club meets at 7:15 pm on the 2nd Sunday in the main store! It focuses on fantasy and the paranormal and is led by bookseller Grace.
Everyone is welcome. No membership is necessary, but RSVP is required.
Book for November: To Shape a Dragon’s Breath: The First Book of Nampeshiweisit by Moniquill Blackgoose.
The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations—until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon’s egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is revered as Nampeshiweisit—a person in a unique relationship with a dragon.
Unfortunately for Anequs, the Anglish conquerors of her land have different opinions. They have a very specific idea of how a dragon should be raised, and who should be doing the raising—and Anequs does not meet any of their requirements. Only with great reluctance do they allow Anequs to enroll in a proper Anglish dragon school on the mainland. If she cannot succeed there, her dragon will be killed.
For a girl with no formal schooling, a non-Anglish upbringing, and a very different understanding of the history of her land, challenges abound—both socially and academically. But Anequs is smart, determined, and resolved to learn what she needs to help her dragon, even if it means teaching herself. The one thing she refuses to do, however, is become the meek Anglish miss that everyone expects.
Anequs and her dragon may be coming of age, but they’re also coming to power, and that brings an important realization: the world needs changing—and they might just be the ones to do it.
Moniquill Blackgoose is the bestselling author of To Shape a Dragon’s Breath, which has won both the Nebula and Lodestar Awards. She began writing science fiction and fantasy when she was twelve and hasn’t stopped writing since. She is an enrolled member of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe and a lineal descendant of Ousamequin Massasoit. She is an avid costumer and an active member of the steampunk community. She has blogged, essayed, and discussed extensively across many platforms the depictions of Indigenous and Indigenous-coded characters in sci-fi and fantasy.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 8th
Time: 7:15 pm – 8:15 pm
Address: 3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://therippedbodice.com/event/2026-11-08/fantasy-romance-la-book-club-november-2026
