Aphasia Book Club of Mid Valley

Aphasia is a language impairment, usually due to stroke, that affects individuals’ ability to speak, understand speech, read and write.

The Mid-Valley Branch is proud to offer a book club designed especially for adults with aphasia, and provides its members with supportive materials to improve their comprehension and ability to discuss complex topics. A single book will be discussed over a period of several weeks.

Our first book will be Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. For more information or to register call Sarah Catheart at (818) 677-4856 or email her at sarah.catheart@csun.edu.

Where: Mid-Valley Regional Library

Date: Monday the 5^th         

Time: 1 pm – 3 pm

Address: 16244 Nordhoff St., North Hills, CA 91343

Website: http://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/aphasia-book-club-mid-valley

Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 9/05/16 – 9/11/16”

By Diego Renteria

From: Tell Your True Tale

As a teenager, I was part of a mariachi group with high school friends. We performed at birthday parties, masses, quinceañeras, and weddings around Southern California, each time becoming part of someone’s special occasion.

We always hesitated about taking gigs after December 15th because members traveled with their families for the holidays. In 2006, however, almost all our members stayed in our town of South Gate for Christmas, so that year we accepted a Christmas Eve gig because it was a one-hour performance in our hometown.

Continue reading “Song For The Living”

by Victoria Kim

From: Los Angeles Times

Standing in the heart of Koreatown, novelist Krys Lee is turned around.

Was this the direction to the Korean market to which her family made a pilgrimage every weekend, and her mother would rent her cache of Korean videotapes? Which way was the tofu restaurant she and her pastor father walked to countless times, after her mother died and there was no one to cook him Korean food?

And where was her father’s final apartment, where he lived, broken and lost, until he suffered a heart attack mid-sermon at the pulpit?

Continue reading “Raised in California and living in Seoul, novelist Krys Lee wrestles with Korean identities”

Patrick Duffy at Book Soup

Please join us to hear Patrick Duffy discuss and sign 
When TV unveiled the series “Man from Atlantis” no one knew the how, where and why of Mark Harris. Over time the show’s star, Patrick Duffy, formulated his own version of the history of Mark and his people. Here is the book that gives every reader and fan of the show the life and mythology of Atlantis, who they were and where they came from.

See event guidelines on website.

Where: Book Soup

Date: Monday the 29^th         

Time: 7 pm

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

Website: http://www.booksoup.com/event/patrick-duffy-discusses-and-signs-man-atlantis

Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 8/29/16 – 9/04/16”

By Melissa Chadburn

From: The Rumpus

I should tell you that although I haven’t known him too long, I became instantly fond of Ben. I live in a small area of Los Angeles along the LA River between Echo Park and Glendale. The river covered in ducks and shopping carts and other long necked birds whose name I don’t know. There is a banner strung between two trees on the island in the center of the LA River that reads ‘River Thug.’ Thursdays is laundry day for the people who live on the island. The River Thug and other squatters ride bikes and the women are mostly toothless and shy. One morning when walking along the river I came across two young homeless women with two adorable dogs. I asked them if they needed dog food and they stayed looking forward as if they hadn’t heard me. The next day on my walk I noticed a sign:

Uptown Word & Arts is back in September with a writer’s workshop for women. Their mission is to create spaces where writers, artists, and the community can engage. To foster literacy development, a passion for literature and the arts, and creative expression. To feature and support authors and artists from underrepresented groups. Promote the community, including small businesses and non-profit organizations. To stay informed of any … Continue reading Upcoming Uptown Word & Arts Event

L.A. Public Library Authors at Chevalier’s Bookstore
Please join us to hear photographer Arnold Schwartzman and architectural historian Stephen Gee discuss and sign . As the Library celebrates its 90^th anniversary, its beautiful building, paintings, murals, sculptures, décor and storied tile work are captured by the lens of Arnold Schwartzman, and its remarkable history is chronicled by Stephen Gee. Many of the colorfully restored artwork and historic images and blueprints were never published before.

Where: Chevalier’s Bookstore

Date: Monday the 22^nd        

Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

Address: 126 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004

Website: http://chevaliersbooks.com

Continue reading “Los Angeles Literature Events 8/22/16 – 8/28/16”

BY Kaitlyn Greenidge

From: Lenny

I first heard Natashia Deon read from her novel Grace six years ago. She stood at the podium in full silence for 30 seconds, encouraging all of us to lean a little bit closer to her, to listen. And when she finally began reading, I am not exaggerating when I say that I heard people gasp.

Grace is now a novel out in the world. It follows the life histories of three women — an enslaved woman, her daughter, and a Jewish woman, set in the antebellum and post-Emancipation South, a period that most Americans know nothing about but that we point to again and again as proof of American progress. It is an exploration of race, memory, trauma, and joy.

Continue reading “A Different Kind of Justice”

From: City of West Hollywood

The City of West Hollywood’s City Council, at its regular meeting on Monday, August 15, 2016, unanimously approved Kim Dower as the City of West Hollywood’s next City Poet. Dower was selected through a nominations process and selection committee comprised of local residents and staff members from the West Hollywood Library, the Friends of the West Hollywood Library, and West Hollywood City Hall.

Continue reading “City of West Hollywood Selects Kim Dower as Next City Poet”

From: Tíachucha.org