Philosophical Horror Book Club: Brainwyrmsat Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Philosophical Horror Book Club participants will discuss Brainwyrms, by author Alison Rumfitt.
When a transphobic woman bombs Frankie’s workplace, she blows up Frankie’s life with it. As the media descends like vultures, Frankie tries to cope with the carnage: binge-drinking, sleeping with strangers, pushing away her friends. Then, she meets Vanya. Mysterious, beautiful, terrifying Vanya.
The two hit it off immediately, but as their relationship intensifies, so does Frankie’s feeling that Vanya is hiding something from her. When Vanya’s secrets threaten to tear them apart, Frankie starts digging, and unearths a sinister, depraved conspiracy, the roots of which go deeper than she ever imagined.
Shocking, grotesque, and downright filthy, Brainwyrms confronts the creeping reality of political terrorism while exploring the depths of love, pain, and identity.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:Cellar Door Bookstore
Date:Monday the 15th
Time:6 pm
Address:473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/philosophical-horror-book-club-brainwyrms
Book Talk & Signing: Katrina Carrasco, with Ivy Pochoda, & Rough Trade at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Katrina Carrasco, in conversation with Ivy Pochoda, will discuss her book, Rough Trade.
Katrina Carrasco plunges readers into the vivid, rough-and-tumble world of the late-1800s Pacific Northwest in this genre- and gender-blurring novel. Rough Trade follows Carrasco’s critically acclaimed debut The Best Bad Things and reimagines queer communities, the turbulent early days of modern media and medicine, and the pleasures—and price—of satisfying desire.
Katrina Carrasco holds an MFA in fiction from Portland State University, where she received the Tom and Phyllis Burnam Graduate Fiction Scholarship and the Tom Doulis Graduate Fiction Writing Award. Her work has appeared in Witness magazine, Post Road Magazine, Quaint Magazine, and other journals. The Best Bad Things is her first novel and Rough Trade is her second.
Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Wonder Valley, Visitation Street, and These Women. She won the 2018 Strand Critics Award for Best Novel and the Prix Page America in France and has been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Edgar Award, among other awards. For many years, Ivy taught creative writing at Studio 526 in Los Angeles’s Skid Row. She is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside-Palm Desert low-residency MFA program. She lives in Los Angeles.
Where:Chevalier’s
Date:Monday the 15th
Time:6 pm
Address:133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Alvina Chamberland &Love the World or Get Killed Tryingat Book Soup – In-Person Event
Alvina Chamberlandwill present and discuss her book, Love the World or Get Killed Trying.
Through playful poetic prose, sharp social commentary and self-deprecating gallows humor this novel dives into the mind of Alvina, a trans woman on the eve of turning 30. The reader is invited to follow her journey through the breathtaking wilderness of Iceland and busy city boulevards of Berlin and Paris as she probes questions of eternity, sexuality, longing, death, love, and how hard it is to remain soft when you’re a ceaseless target of straight men’s secret lust and open disgust. This novel tackles universal issues through a trans woman’s specific lens – insisting on these experiences speaking to far more than just issues of sexuality and gender.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:Book Soup
Date:Monday the 15th
Time:7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address:8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/alvina-chamberland
Santa Monica Main Library Book Group Discussion: Talking to Strangers via Santa Monica Main Library –Online ZoomEvent
Santa Monica Main Book Group participants will discuss Talking to Strangers, by author Malcolm Gladwell.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where:Santa Monica Mian Library, SMPL
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time:7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address:Online Zoom Event
Website:https://smpl.org
Book Release: Hamilton Nolan, with Adam Conover, & The Hammerat Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Acclaimed labor reporter Hamilton Nolan, in conversation with Adam
Conover, will present his book, The Hammer: Power Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor.
This book is a timely, in-depth, and vital exploration of the American labor movement and its critical place in our society and politics.
Hamilton Nolan is a labor journalist who writes regularly for In These Times magazine and The Guardian. He has written about labor, politics, and class war for The New York Times, the Washington Post, Gawker, Splinter, and other publications. He was the longest-serving writer in Gawker’s history and was a leader in unionizing Gawker Media in 2015. Hamilton is a proud member of the Writers Guild of America, East. He lives in Brooklyn.
Joined by writer, comedian, and organizer Adam Conover.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:Stories Books & Café
Date:Monday the 15th
Time:7 pm – 8 pm
Address:1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Monday Night Fiction Workshop at Beyond Baroque–OnlineZoomEvent
This free Monday Night Community Writing Workshop led byRaquelBakerisa 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 Bakerearned 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 lives for talking about all things about the craft and social meanings of literature!
Where:Beyond Baroque – Online event
Date:Monday the 15th
Time:7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address:Zoom Online Event (see site)
Website:https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops
Under Mic Influence: Featured Readings & Open Mic at LB Unified – In-Person Event
If you need an open mic, beautiful people, tasty eats, dope inspiration, good libations, and good vibrations, we have you covered!
Join hostKuahmel Alyeeus KuahAllahand@djkevjamfor poetry, Open Mic, rare grooves, co*cktails, tasty bites.
Featured guest TBA.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where:LB Unified
Date:Monday the 15th
Time:8 pm – 10 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)
Address:2222 E. Anaheim St., Long Beach, CA 90804
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/under-mic-influence-tickets-595248092067
Author Appearance: George M. Johnson & All Boys Aren’t Blue at UC Riverside – In-Person & Crowdcast Hybrid Event
Author George M. Johnson, Award-Winning Black Non-Binary Writer, Author, and Executive Producer located in the LA area is a New York Times Bestselling Young Adult author of the memoir All Boys Aren’t Blue,
Free book by George M. Johnson to the first 50 people at the in-person reading.
(Choose from All Boys Aren’t Blue or We Are Not Broken)
LIVE in Interdisciplinary South (INTS) 1128
Register for Virtual attendance https://www.crowdcast.io/c/zo06t9aribrm
Where:UC Riverside, CHASS INTS 1128 Theatre
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:12 pm
Address:900 University Ave., Riverside, CA 92521
Website:https://events.ucr.edu/event
Big Read: Books & Bagels Book Club: Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? at Venice-Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by author Roz Chast.
In her first memoir, Roz Chast brings her signature wit to the topic of aging parents. Spanning the last several years of their lives and told through four-color cartoons, family photos, and documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast’s memoir is both comfort and comic relief for anyone experiencing the life-altering loss of elderly parents.
Where:Venice Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:12:30 pm
Address:601 S. Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90291
Website:https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-books-and-bagels-book-club
Tuesday Afternoon Book Club: Possession at Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Book Club participants will discuss Possession, by author A.S. Byett. (Part 1).
Join for an engaging book discussion. Copies are available at the reference desk.
Where:Silver Lake Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:1 pm
Address:2411 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90039
Website:https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/tuesday-afternoon-book-club-6
Special Nonfiction Book Club: Reading Lolita in Tehran at Donald Bruce Kauffman-Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
In honor of the 20th anniversary of Azar Nafisi’s landmark literary memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, our April meeting of the Nonfiction Book Club will have a special talk led by Frieda Afary, a member of PEN America’s World Literature Speaker’s Bureau to discuss the book in its historical and cultural context, and its continuing relevance today.
Where:Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:1 pm
Address: 11820 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049
Emerson Ave. Community Garden Book Club: Wicked Plants at The Book Jewel – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss Wicked Plants, by Amy Stewart.
In Wicked Plants the author explores many unique plants and shrubs that have dangerous or strange characteristics and seem to be Mother Nature’s most disturbing creations.
Where:The Book Jewel
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:6 pm
Address: 6259 W. 87th St., Westchester, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website:https://www.thebookjewel.com/events
Classic Detectives Book Club: Pietr the Latvian at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Classic Detectives Book Club participants will discuss Pietr the Latvian (Inspector Maigret #1), by author Georges Simenon.
In Simenon’s iconic first novel featuring Inspector Maigret, the laconic detective is taken from grimy bars to luxury hotels as he traces a fraudster’s true identity.
Georges Simenon (1903–1989) was born on February 12th, 1903 in Liege, Belgium. At the age of nineteen, Simenon embarked to Paris to begin a career as a writer. In 1923 he began publishing under various pseudonyms, and in 1929 began the Inspector Maigret series which helped elevate him to a household name in continental Europe. His prolific output of more than four hundred novels and the gripping, dark realism of his prose has cemented him as an inedlible fixture of twentieth century literature. He died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:Cellar Door Bookstore
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:6 pm
Address:473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/classic-detectives-book-club-pietr-latvian
Book Launch & Signing: Abbi Waxman, with Hilary Liftin, & Christa Comes Out of Her Shell at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Abbi Waxman, in conversation with Hilary Liftin, will discuss her book, Christa Comes Out of Her Shell.
Just when she thought she’d gotten far enough away…a life-changing phone call throws an antisocial scientist back into her least favorite place—the spotlight. A hilarious and insightful new novel from the USA Today bestselling author of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill.
Abbi Waxman is the USA Today bestselling author of I Was Told It Would Get Easier, The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, Other People’s Houses, and The Garden of Small Beginnings. She lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and three children.
Hilary Liftin is a ghostwriter/collaborator/book coach who has worked on sixteen New York Times bestsellers and counting. Hilary has also written three books under her own name. The most recent is Movie Star by Lizzie Pepper, a fictional celebrity memoir. Before becoming a full-time writer in 2006, Hilary worked in the publishing industry for ten years. She lives in Sherman Oaks, which is not as far away as people in Hanco*ck Park seem to think.
Where:Chevalier’s
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:6 pm
Address:133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Mysterious Book Club: Reading Lolita in Tehran at Donald Bruce Kauffman-Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us for the next meeting of the Mysterious Book Club a group of readers who love mystery and suspense. We are reading The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocum. We welcome new members. Come even if you haven’t read the book. You can meet everyone and you’ll know the title for next month.
“Ray has a gift and a dream—he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. When he discovers that his beat-up, family fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach, and together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition—the Olympics of classical music—the violin is stolen, a ransom note for five million dollars left in its place.”
Where:Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:6:30 pm
Address: 6400 Playa Vista Dr., Los Angeles, CA 90094
Website:https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/3rd-tuesday-book-club-8
Will co*ckrell, with John Long, & Everest, Inc.: The Renegades and Rogues Who Built an Industry at the Top of the World at Diesel, a Bookstore – In-Person Event
Will co*ckrell, in conversation with John Long, will discuss and sign, Everest, Inc.: The Renegades and Rogues Who Built an Industry at the Top of the World,
Featuring original interviews with mountain guides and climbers—including Jimmy Chin and Conrad Anker—this vivid and authoritative adventure history chronicles one of the least likely industries on Earth: guided climbing on Mount Everest.
Will co*ckrell has spent more than twenty years as a senior editor, writer, and consultant for national magazines including Men’s Journal, Outside, Men’s Fitness, and GQ. His work has been awarded by the American Society of Magazine Editors and Professional Publishers Association UK. A former outdoor guide, co*ckrell has covered Everest throughout his career, and has visited Everest base camp in Nepal. He lives with his family in Los Angeles, California.
John Long was an original member of the legendary “Stonemasters,” a core group of California climbers who lit the fuse on the modern adventure sports revolution. Long describes himself as “a writer who happened to get caught up in climbing and adventuring.” Long has written over 40 books, with nearly three million copies in print. His literary short stories have been widely anthologized and translated into many languages. He is the recipient of a National Book Award, the H. Adams Carter Literary Award from the American Alpine Club and has won the Grand Prize at the Banff Film and Book Festival.
Where:Playa Vista Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website:https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Will-co*ckrell-John-Long-April-16-Author-signing
Conchas y Café Zine Writing Workshop via DSTL Arts – In-Person Event
Conchas y Café is a DSTL Arts bilingual community writing workshop series for adults that produces a biannual zine by the same name, featuring artwork and creative writing produced by our community and program participants.
The goal of Conchas y Café is to bring together our community under the arts, building skills and arts-literacy, so that more adults may appreciate the cultural and economic value the arts bring to our lives. The content taught through this workshop series is primarily for new and emerging poets and writers, or people returning to creative writing after a long-term absence from the craft.
The Conchas y Café workshop series spans 15 weeks, and is an ongoing program offered every trimester. Our program participants write on a new theme for their zine every trimester and celebrate its release with a public reading.
Enrollment via Google Classroom required for workshop participation and full access to session handouts.
For any questions regarding Conchas y Café, feel free to contact us directly by email at Info@DSTLArts.org.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:DSTL Arts
Date:Tuesday the16th (through April the 30th)
Time:6:30 pm
Address:Online Event (see site)
Website:https://www.dstlarts.org/conchasycafezine
Book Club: Africa Is Not a Country at Village Well Books & Coffee –In-PersonEvent
Village Well Book Club, participants will discuss Africa Is Not a Country, by author Dipo Faloyin.
So often, Africa has been depicted simplistically as a uniform land of famines and safaris, poverty and strife, stripped of all nuance. In this bold and insightful book, Dipo Faloyin offers a much-needed corrective, weaving a vibrant tapestry of stories that bring to life Africa’s rich diversity, communities, and histories.
Where:Village Well Books & Coffee
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address:9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website:https://shop.villagewell.com/events/36299
Cindy Rasicot, with James Rosser, &This Fresh Existenceat Book Soup – In-Person Event
Cindy Rasicot, in conversation with James Rosser,will present and discuss her book, This Fresh Existence.
A TV personality, academic, and author, Bhikkhuni Dhammananda defied convention to become the first woman fully ordained in the Thai Theravada Buddhist tradition. She shattered gender barriers and inspired a new era of equality and compassion. Her student, American author Cindy Rasicot, tells her story, and shares Bhikkhuni Dhammananda’s gentle wisdom and direct insights about how to live a more compassionate life.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:Book Soup
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address:8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/cindy-rasicot
North Fig Book Club: LIARMOUTHat North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss LIARMOUTH: A Feel Sad Romance by John Waters.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:North Figueroa Bookshop
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:7 pm – 9 pm
Address:6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-ltnjdj5h
Mystery Book Club: The Cliff’s Edgevia Santa Monica Main Library, SMPL – Online Zoom Event
Book Club participants will discuss The Cliff’s Edge by author Charles Todd.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where:Santa Monica Main Library
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address:Online Event (see site)
Website: https://smpl.org
Ticketed: Vroman’s Presents Anne Lamott, with Mike Kinman, & Somehow: Thoughts on Love at Vroman’s Off-site at All Saints Church – In-Person Event
In Somehow: Thoughts on Love, Lamott explores the transformative power that love has in our lives: how it surprises us, forces us to confront uncomfortable truths, reminds us of our humanity, and guides us forward. “Love just won’t be pinned down,” she says. “It is in our very atmosphere” and lies at the heart of who we are. We are, Lamott says, creatures of love.
Somehow is Anne Lamott’s twentieth book, and in it she draws from her own life and experience to delineate the intimate and elemental ways that love buttresses us in the face of despair as it galvanizes us to believe that tomorrow will be better than today.
Mike Kinman (he/him/el) is a follower of the revolutionary Jesus, spouse, parent, Episcopal priest, and the Tenth Rector of All Saints Church, Pasadena. He believes God gives the church the ministry of reconciliation, which requires us to meet Christ in those among us who are most marginalized, oppressed and targeted and allow their voices and concerns the center place in community life.
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where:Vroman’s Off-site at All Saints Church
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:7 pm – 9 pm
Address:132 N. Euclid Ave., Pasadena, CA 91001
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/upcoming-events
Tuesday Night Café: Featured Guests & Open Mic at Tuesday Night Project – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Tuesday Night Project is back every 1st & 3rd Tuesday in the courtyard with a special show! Join us at the Union Center for the Arts on April 16th, 2024, at 7:30 pm for art, music, community, friends, and fun!
– Update! – As we consider the ongoing pandemic and want to make the space as available to our community as possible, masking is required in our courtyard and inside the UCA lobby. We will have masks available on site. If you can’t join us in-person, we will continue to stream our shows on YouTube.
Mike Sonksen and traci kato-kiriyama host, with DJ THATFLYPINAY and with special musical guest Shin Kawasaki.
Featuring: bridgette bianca, Naiya Choi-Kim, Steady, Taz Ahmed, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo & the Open Mic lottery.
bridgette bianca is a poet and professor from South Central Los Angeles. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English from Howard University and her Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Otis College of Art & Design. She is the author of the collection be/trouble.
Naiya Choi-Kim N/A
Steady N/A
Taz Ahmed is a political strategist, storyteller, and artist based in Los Angeles. She’s spent most of her life dancing at the intersection of activism and art as a South Asian Muslim 2nd-generation immigrant American woman. She is the author of Grasping at This Planet Just to Believe: Poetry a Day Over a Decade of Ramadan.
Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is the daughter of Mexican immigrants. Her debut poetry collection, Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge (Sundress Publications 2016), is inspired by her family’s immigration stories and her time volunteering with the humanitarian aid organization, No More Deaths. Her new release is Incantations: Love Songs for Battle Sites.
traci kato kiriyama is a poet, writer, performer, and educator and the founder of Tuesday Night Project. She is the author of Navigating With(out) Instruments.
Mike the Poet Sonksen is a writer, educator and spoken word host, mentor, and performer. His most recent book is the 2nd edition of Letters to My City.
Where: Union Center for the Arts
Date: Tuesday the 16th
Time: 7:30 pm
Address: 120 Judge John Aliso St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/C4yD_P9Oy6Y/?hl=e
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic + Featured Reader Jubi Arriola-Headley – Online ZoomEvent
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented byRick Lupertvia Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and featured guest Jubi Arriola-Headley.
Jubi Arriola-Headley (he/him) is a Black queer poet, storyteller, first-generation United Statesian, and the author of two collections of poems: ORIGINAL KINK (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020), recipient of the 2021 Housatonic Award, and BOUND (Persea Books, 2024). He’s currently at work on a collection of essays, an excerpt of which received the 2023 First Pages Prize for Creative Nonfiction. Jubi lives with his husband in South Florida, on ancestral Tequesta, Miccosukee, and Seminole lands.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where:Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address:Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html or https://www.facebook.com/events
Communicator Series #4: Wide frequency Response with at Poetic Research Bureau – In-PersonEvent
This reading features Sheree Rose, jeremy kennedy & Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta.
Pre-medicated. Irreverent. Cutty and sprung. Communicator Series no. 4 activates with calculated precision, in spite and solidarity.
Performances by: Sheree Rose, jeremy kennedy and Bay Area artist Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta negotiate incoherence and insurrectionary strategies for dismembering linearity…i.e. if it can exist it must exist.
Jeremy Kennedy has been creating and exhibiting art and ideas in community and academic settings since the mid-1990s. Before moving to Los Angeles in 2009, the largely self-taught artist spent over a decade living and working in Bloomington, Indiana. Her pieces and projects have been featured in publications and journals internationally, and in galleries, streets, backyards, and basem*nts across the U.S.
As co-founder, playwright, and reluctant performer with P/Sicho Street Theater Company, she produces collaborative radio/audio theatre productions and site-specific works for stage & salon. She can be found in print as the author of A Gamble in this Dress, Free Flyer (Volume One), NOTE TO SEA, was a contributing essayist/editor of Cry List, and is a founding editor of the artbook/poetry imprint Rebel Hands Press. Her new book, Mandatory Administrative Leave is forthcoming Spring 2024 from Make Now Books.
Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta is an anarchist artist and poet interested in ways of living and telling. They are the author of two books of poetry, and are at work on another, as well as a speculative acid western lesbian romantic ethnomusicological history of Chicana country music & revolution on 1970s Valencia Street. They have written non-fiction essays on things such as Latinx youth activism in Idaho, Central American migrant families in Tijuana & those that support them, and Angeleno psychogeography. A Latinx Jewish person of mixed indigenous & settler descent from the unceded lands of the Tongva people, they are a long—term guest in Yelamu, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands, where they garden with their partner & bake challah every Friday
Sheree Rose: The performance, photography and video work of Los Angeles based artists, Bob Flanagan and Sheree Rose shook, rattled and rolled across the United States in the late 1980’s beginning with Nailed a performance at Olio, a small space in Silverlake, Los Angeles, that was notorious for Flanagan nailing his scrotum to a board, Rose cutting into the breasts of a woman strapped to a cross, which caused grown men to faint, and drew the attention of Jesse Helms, a United States senator, which ended much funding of the National Endowment of the Arts, and rallied artists to declare “Art is not a Crime!”
Flanagan and Rose exhibited their extreme show, Visiting Hours at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. After Flanagan’s death in 1996, the documentary Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan: Supermasoch*st graced the screens of Sundance to great acclaim.
NOTE: Details at event link.
Where:Poetic Research Bureau
Date:Tuesday the 16th
Time:7:30 pm (Doors at 7 pm)
Address:2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://www.poeticresearch.com/events/communicator-series-4
Da Poetry Lounge Open Mic at Greenway Court –In-PersonEvent
The nation’s largest weekly Open Mic event is 25 years strong. They hold open mic nights. At an open mic, all are welcome to share their poetry or sit in their audience.
Every Tuesday (except for 3rd Tuesdays SLAM and special events) they hold open mic night. In a standard slam, there are five judges that are selected. Before the competition begins, the host may bring up a sacrificial poet who is not competing in the slam but is scored by the judges in order for them to calibrate their scoring.
NOTE: See sign-ups, details, and guidelines at website link.
$10 donation. Do NOT line up prior to 7:30 p.m. Free parking adjacent to theatre.
Masks are encouraged. All ages are welcome.
Where:Greenway Court Theatre
Date:Tuesday the16th
Time:9 pm – 11 pm
Address:544 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036
Website:https://www.instagram.com/p/ChLUBSRPCFb/or https://www.dapoetrylounge.com/events/open-mic-night
Coffee Time Book Club: JAMESat pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event
Coffee Time Book Club participants will discuss JAMES: A Novel, by author Percival Everett.
A reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:pages: a bookstore
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:10 am
Address:904 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Website: https://www.pagesabookstore.com/event/coffee-time-book-club-27
Book Club:Clark and Divisionat Granada Hills Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person &OnlineHybridEvent
Book Club participants will discuss the mystery novel,Clark and Division, by authorNaomi Hirahara.
Set in 1944 Chicago, Edgar Award-winner Naomi Hirahara’s eye-opening and poignant new mystery, the story of a young woman searching for the truth about her revered older sister’s death, brings to focus the struggles of one Japanese American family released from mass incarceration at Manzanar during World War II.
Where:Granda Hills Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:10:30 am – 12 pm
Address:21052 Devonshire St., Reseda, CA 91335
Website:https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-43
Poets Café: Poetry Event via KPFK 90.7 FM – Live On-Air Event
Poets Café celebrates National Poetry Month and hosts poets in discussion. It’s aired weekly on KPFK.
This program is offered weekly on KPFK Los Angeles 90.7 FM.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:KPFK 90.7 FM
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:2 pm – 2:30 pm
Address:On-air Event (live)
Website: https://www.kpfk.org/on-air/poets-cafe/oe
Good Trouble Reading Group:House Made of Dawnat Edendale Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Good Trouble group participants will discuss the novel,House Made of Dawn by authorN. Scott Momaday.
Join the Good Trouble Reading Group to discuss N. Scott Momaday’s classic short novel House Made of Dawn, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1969. Abel, a young Native American, finishes his tour of duty in World War II and returns home to the New Mexico reservation where he grew up. Fighting in the war has traumatized him and he has lost his way, no longer able to fit in with either modern urban life or the traditional folkways of his people. He reels through drink and debauchery and violence, first on the reservation and later on the rough streets of Los Angeles. Finally he returns to the reservation to care for his dying grandfather and seek a chance at redemption. House Made of Dawn was one of the first major literary works to introduce Native American culture to a mainstream audience.
House Made of Dawn is available from the Los Angeles Public Library as a print book, an e-book, and an e-audiobook.
Email eden@lapl.org for the Zoom link to attend.
Where:Edendale Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:4 pm
Address:Online Event (see site)
Website:https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/good-trouble-reading-group-%E2%80%93-house-made-dawn-n-scott-momaday
Graphic Novel Club:Silverwingat Once Upon a Time – In-Person MG Event
Graphic Novel Book Club participants will discuss Silverwing Tthe Silverwing Trilogy)by author Kenneth Oppel and illustrator Christopher Dteininger.
Humor! Adventure! Magic! Graphic novels have it all! Iz and Apollo will host our ever-popular book club.
Best for ages 9-12. Masks are recommended.
This is a discussion- based club. Participants should come prepared to share their thoughts about that meeting’s book choice.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:Once Upon a Time
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:4 pm
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Feedback Circle Workshop via The Poetry Lab –OnlineEvent
The Feedback Circle workshop is appropriate for writers who have at least 5 poems ready for revision. Participants will have opportunities for feedback in small groups, large groups, and one-on-one settings. Much attention will be paid to giving feedback to others compassionately and equitably. Craft-focused feedback will be strongly encouraged, and a review of elements of craft will be made available to facilitate this focus.
Maximum class size: 12 people
NOTE: See site for RSVP, cost, guidelines, and details.
Where:The Poetry Lab
Date:Wednesday the 17th(Six weeks: concludes on April 24th)
Time:5 pm – 7:30 pm
Address:Online Zoom Event (see site)
Website:https://www.thepoetrylab.com/feedback
Reading in Bed with Jessica: L.A, Poet Society via 101.5 FM – Live On-Air Event
Reading in Bed with Jessica hosts poets and writers in conversation and is aired weekly on 101.5 FM.
Jessica Wilson Cardenas is the founder of Los Angeles Poet Society.
Guests TBA
This program is offered weekly on Radio Ollin Los Angeles 101.5 FM.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:L.A. Poet Society via www.radioollin.com 101.5 FM
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:6 pm – 8 pm
Address:On-air Event (live at 101.5 FM)
Website: https://www.lapoetsociety.org/events
Rainbow Reads: Teen LGBTQIA+ Book Club:This Poison Heart at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Teen Event
Teen LGBTQIA+ Book Club participants will discuss This Poison Heartby author Kathryn Bayron.
Celebrate all the identities and stories!
Best for ages13 and up. Masks are recommended.
This is a discussion- based club. Participants should come prepared to share their thoughts about that meeting’s book choice.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:Once Upon a Time
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:6 pm – 7 pm
Address:2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose,CA91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/rainbow-reads-book-club-poison-heart-kalynn-bayron
Author Conversation: James Thornton & Martin Goodmanat Village Well Books & Coffee –In-PersonEvent
Join author James Thornton as he discusses Nature, My Teacher, and shares how he picks up lessons from listening to the natural world. Now helping to build the North American office of ClientEarth in Santa Monica, he speaks of a lifetime of using law to save the planet. As a Zen priest, trained in LA, he speaks of practices that help him keep up the environmental fight without growing angry, and how to deal with environmental anxiety.
James Thornton is a poet, Zen Buddhist priest, and founder and president of ClientEarth, the leading global not-for-profit environmental law group. Recent poetry collections are The Feynman Challenge and Waymarks. A lifetime of environmental activism includes dramatic success in China.
Martin Goodman co-wrote Client Earth, the book about James and other ecolawyers saving the planet. Recent novels are On Bended Knees and The Cellist of Dachau, while 2025 sees the release of My Head for a Tree, about the Bishnoi religion and its focus on saving nature. He is the publisher of Barbican Press.
Where:Village Well Books & Coffee
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:6 pm – 7 pm
Address:9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website:https://shop.villagewell.com/events/35460
WeHo Reads: Poetry Spa Eventat The ARC – West Hollywood Aquatic and Recreation Center – In-Person Event
Celebrate National Poetry Month and lounge with a poet at the City’s 2nd annual Poetry Spa Day!
This is an in-person event that will refresh and renew your soul through creative intersections with poetry, poets, and poetic “treatments.”
Join the fun and relaxation at the Respite Deck of the City of West Hollywood’s Aquatic and Recreation Center at West Hollywood Park. From 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., explore poetry at “spa stations” such as Feng Shui Poetry, Poemaroma (essential oils), Lotus Poetry (origami), and other poetic experiences. At 7:30 p.m., gather at the steps to hear all the poets share their words.
Terry Wolverton, author of eleven books, including her latest, Season of Eclipse, hosts the Poemaroma spa station.
This year’s event is curated by current West Hollywood City Poet Laureate Jen Cheng, and the spa stations and poets include:
A. K. Toney is a griot, writer, musician, and educator who hosts the Listening Libations spa station where attendees get to mix poetry with soothing sounds.
Brian Sonia-Wallace, author of Poetry of Strangers hosts the Poetry Bath spa station.
Pride Poets members Timothy Nang will host the Lotus Poetry spa station and José Rios will host the Poetry Bingo spa station.
West Hollywood City Poet Laureate Jen Cheng, author of Braided Spaces, hosts the Feng Shui Poetry spa station which guides attendees through the Five Elements.
This event is open to the public and free to attend; RSVPs are requested.
NOTE: See site for RSVP required, guidelines, and details.
Where:The ARC – Respite Deck, West Hollywood Aquatic and Recreation Center (ARC)
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address:8750 El Tovar Place, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/weho-reads-poetry-spa-tickets-775875684057?aff=oddtdtcreator
Book Club for Adults:House Made of Dawnat Studio City Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Book club participants will discuss The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks.
RSVP:
Please email studio@lapl.org for participation details.
Where:Studio City Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:6:30 pm
Address:12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website:https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-club-adults-0
Suzanne Park, Abdi Nazemian: A Behind-The-Scenes Look at Pursuing and Maintaining a Careeras a Published Author at Diesel, a Bookstore – In-Person Event
Welcome Suzanne Park, Abdi Nazemian and Jennie Nash to the store for a panel discussion during the release week of Park’s One Last Word.
Sara Chae is the founder of One Last Word, an app that allows you to send a message to anyone you want after you pass. Safeguards are in place so the app will only send when you’re definitely, absolutely, 100% dead, but when another Sara Chae dies and her obituary is posted online, Sara discovers that drafted messages she had drunkenly uploaded on one night have been released —one each to her emotionally charged mother, to her former best friend who ghosted her, and to her unrequited high school crush, Harry Shim.
Abdi Nazemian is the author of five novels including Like a Love Story, a Stonewall Honor book, and The Chandler Legacies. His latest novel, Only This Beautiful Moment, was the 2024 Stonewall Award Winner from the American Library Association. For his literary work, he has also received a Lambda Literary Award. His screenwriting credits include movies such as The Artist’s Wife and The Quiet, and television shows including Ordinary Joe. He has been a producer, executive producer or associate producer on a number of films, including Call Me By Your Name and Little Woods. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband, their two children, and their dog Disco.
Jennie Nash is the founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, a company on a mission to lead the emerging book coaching industry with rigorous training, high standards for certification, and ongoing support for coaches while they build their businesses. Her own coaching clients have landed top New York agents and six-figure book deals with traditional publishing houses such as Penguin, Scribner, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette, and won dozens of national indie book awards. Client KJ Dell’Antonia’s novel, The Chicken Sisters, was an instant New York Times bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick. Client Jenn Lim’s business book, Beyond Happiness: How Authentic Leaders Prioritize Purpose and People for Growth and Impact, was a Wall Street Journal bestseller. Jennie is the author of 12 books in 3 genres, including the Blueprint series of books to help writers start a novel, memoir, or nonfiction book.
Suzanne Park is a Korean American writer who was born and raised in Tennessee. In her former life as a stand-up comedian, Suzanne appeared on BET, was the winner of the Seattle Sierra Mist Comedy Competition, and was a semi-finalist in NBC’s “Stand Up For Diversity” showcase. Suzanne graduated from Columbia University and received an MBA Degree from UCLA.
Where:Diesel, a Bookstore
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website:https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Suzanne-Park-Abdi-Nazemian-Jennie-Nash-Author-signing
Jorrell Watkins &Playhouse: Poemsat Book Soup – In-Person Event
Jorrell Watkins will present and discuss his collection, Playhouse: Poems.
Jorrell Watkins’ debut poetry collection is a polyvocal, musically charged disruption of the United States’s fixation on drug and gun culture. The poems in PlayHouse embody many identities, including son, brother, fugitive, bluesman, karate practitioner, and witness. Throughout, Watkins inflects a Black/trap vernacular that defamiliarizes the urban Southern landscape. He reckons with the truths and failures of masculinity for Black boys and men, all the while documenting moments of triumphant Black joy and love.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 17th
Time:7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address:8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/jorrell-watkins
Ozge Samanci & Evil Eyes Seaat North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Ozge Samanci will present and discuss Evil Eye Sea.
This fictional graphic novel narrates a mystery story set in Istanbul before the 1995-96 elections. The story takes place against a background of political propaganda; a conservative party is rising to power using religion to appeal to voters cynically.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:North Figueroa Bookshop
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:7 pm – 9 pm
Address:6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-ltnjfgqa
RECESS Open Mic Is Back at SIPA HQ, Palms Up Academy – In-Person Event
RECESS Open Mic Is Back at SIPA HQ on Wednesdays.
This dynamic open mic is the most accessible public program in our curriculum and manifests our mission statement in a physical (and digital) space.
Join us at the intersection of Historic Filipinotown & The World: Search to Involve Pilipino Americans.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, cost, guidelines, and details.
Where:SIPA
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:7 pm – 9:30 pm (Doors at 6:30; Open Mic at 8 pm)
Address:3200 W. Temple St., Ste. 100, Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website:https://www.palmsupacademy.com https://www.instagram.com/p/C3blXIZJERV/
Myah Ariel, with Elise Bryant, & When I Think of Youat Reparations Club – In-Person Event
Myah Ariel, in conversation with Elise Bryant, will discuss her debut contemporary romance, When I Think of You.
Myah Ariel is the author of debut contemporary romance WHEN I THINK OF YOU (Berkley ’24). Her early love of movies led her from Arkansas to New York City where she earned a BA in cinema studies from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She also holds an MA in specialized journalism for the arts from USC Annenberg. For several years Myah worked across multiple roles in the film and entertainment industry before pivoting to work in academia. As a medical mom and a hopeless romantic, Myah is passionate about inclusive love stories.
Elise Bryant is the NAACP Image Award-nominated author of Happily Ever Afters, One True Loves, and Reggie and Delilah’s Year of Falling. For many years, Elise had the joy of working as a special education teacher, and now she spends her days reading, writing, and eating dessert. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Long Beach, California. You can visit her online at http://www.elisebryant.com.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:Reparations Club
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 3054 S. Victoria Ave LA, CA 90016
Website: https://rep.club/products/myah-ariel-event
Book Launch: Racquel Marie, with Alexene Farol Follmuth, & This Is Me Trying at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
Racquel Marie, in conversation with Alexene Farol Follmuth, will discuss her YA novel, This Is Me Trying.
There will be a book signing to follow. This is a ticketed event.
NOTE: See site for ticket and details.
Where:The Ripped Bodice
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:7 pm
Address:Main Street, Culver City, CA
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Anansi Virtual Writers Workshop at The World Stage –In-PersonEvent
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. For general information and booking, contact V. Kali, the Anansi Writers Workshop Coordinator, atvkaliflowers@gmail.com.
- 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm—Formal workshop;
- 8:30 pm – 9:00 pm — WSP & Dion Jahmal book launch;
- 9:05 pm – 10:00 pm — Open mic.
Suggested:$5.00 Donation via PayPal: The World Stage Gallery.
NOTE:See site for further details, and any change in the schedule. Contactkaliflowers@gmail.comor call (323) 293-2451
Where:The World Stage
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address:4321 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.instagram.com/anansiwritersworkshop/
Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop at Beyond Baroque–OnlineZoomEvent
Beyond Baroque’s longest-running free poetry workshop is offered 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 sign up for each workshop session at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting, and you will be contacted with instructions on how to join the meeting.
The workshop facilitator this quarter isL.A. Johnson, the author of the chapbookLittle Climates(Bull City Press, 2017). She holds an MFA from Columbia University and a PhD from the University of Southern California, where she is currently a Mellon Humanities and University of the Future postdoctoral fellow. The winner of the 2022 Mississippi Review Poetry Prize, the 2022 Greensboro Review Poetry Prize, the 2021 Arts & Letters Rumi Poetry Prize, her poems appear in The Atlantic, Poetry Magazine, and The Slowdown. She’s received support for her writing from Vermont Studio Center, Community of Writers, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and elsewhere. Find more about her athttp://www.la-johnson.com
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. There’s an instructive video that might help.
The workshop can sometimes reach high levels of attendance, which means not everyone will get a chance to read every session.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where:Beyond Baroque
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:8 pm – 10 pm
Address:Online event (see site)
Website:https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshopsor https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wednesday-night-poetry-workshop-tickets-881364142877
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg and Featured Guest Katherine Williams at The Ugly Mug –In-PersonEvent
HostBen Triggand Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at the Ugly Mug on Wednesday Nights offers a Reading & Open Micwith featured guest Katherine Williams.
Katherine Williams is a White Southerner who grew up in the Navy and lived in Charleston SC as a young adult, then spent twenty years in Los Angeles, and returned to SC twenty years ago. She’s a Pushcart and Best of the Web nominee with poems in Spillway, South Carolina Review, Projector, Measure, Diagram, and elsewhere. She began writing in 1991, published three chapbooks, and studied poetry with Richard Garcia’s Long Table Poets for twenty years. Her first poetry collection, The Devil Cruises Pacific Coast Highway,has just been published by Kelsay Books.
Williams has been a research technician at UCLA Medical Center, Hollings Marine Laboratories, and the Medical Univ. of SC; an Apple-certified technician; a college chemistry tutor; and a graphic artist and web developer. As a board member of The Poetry Society of SC, she created the Warrior Poets Series, presenting veteran-poets at the Charleston VA Medical Center, and as founding chair of James Island Arts Council, she created Poetry at McLeod, in which illustrious Black poets interpret the plantation experience—from enslavement, to ascendancy in all walks of American life.
$4 cover fee, cash only See less
$4 cover fee, cash only
NOTE: See site for further details.
Where:The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date:Wednesday the 17th
Time:8 pm – 10 pm
Address:261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website:https://www.facebook.com/people/Two-Idiots-Peddling-Poetry/ or https://www.facebook.com/events/370666535593666
Get Lit – Words Ignite Classic SLAM, Quarter & Semi-Finals at Los Angeles Theatre Center – In-Person Event
An Evening of Youth Spoken Word Poetry and the culmination of Get Lit’s in-school program is the annual Classic SLAM, with fresh perspectives that demonstrate storytelling at the highest level.
Host Mason Granger and DJ will guide this event.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: Los Angeles Theatre Center
Date:Thursday the 18th
Time: 9 am – 5 pm
Address: 514 S. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90013
Website: https://www.getlit.org/classic-slam
Tokyo Zine Pop-Upat The Pop Hop – In-Person Event
The Pop-Hop is stoked to welcome TOKYO ZINE POP UP, a mini zine fest that brings Japanese zines abroad to your local gallery or indie bookshop! The Pop-Up will run for three weeks, and feature zines from 7 Japanese artists of very different backgrounds, joined through their passion for zine-making. This is a rare opportunity to find carefully hand-crafted and beautifully packaged zines of intriguing art, cute illustrations, and local scenes from Tokyo! We’re proud to host the premiere edition of this event, which will soon be making its way to other spaces around the world!
Featuring zines by:
Kanda_Yunyun, Stand, Fanfan, Asami Akinaga, Hama Hatakawa, Ipoipo, Ayako Motohashi
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:The Pop Hop
Date:Thursday the 18th (through May 8th)
Time:10 am – 5 pm
Address:5002 York Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://www.thepophop.com/calendar/2024/4/18/tokyo-zine-pop-up-april-18may-5
LA City College Book Program Series: Benin Lemus on What Poetry Says to the World: A Conversation in Craft & Creativity at Central Library, LAPL – Online Event
Author, poet, and educator Benin Lemus guests in the LACC Book Program Series to discuss What Poetry Says to the World: A Conversation on Craft & Creativity.
Benin Lemus is the author of the poetry collection, Dreaming in Mourning. Inspired by the Black Arts Movement and their descendants on personal journeys pf grief and loss, she explores racial and gender violence, motherhood, gentrification, gratitude and joyful celebration, with a mission to employ various forms and by using accessible language.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:LACC Book Program, HAMC David Alpert Lecture Hall,
Date:Thursday the 18th
Time: 1 pm – 3 pm
Address: LACC, 133 Marathon St, Los Angeles, CA 90029
Website: https://www.instagram.com/lacitycollege/p/C4vYSlzP_Ft/
Your Author Series: Malaka Gharib & I Was Their American Dreamat Central Library, LAPL – Online Event
Celebrate Arab American Heritage Month, with journalist, cartoonist, and graphic novelist author Malaka Gharib to discuss her memoir, I Was Their American Dream.
Gharib’s reflections on Arab American identity and the power of storytelling are sure to resonate deeply with first-generation Americans. Don’t miss this opportunity to engage in a conversation that transcends borders and embraces the power of storytelling.
By day, she works as a digital editor at NPR for Life Kit, a lifestyle podcast about health, finance, relationships, and more. Her comics and writing have been published in the Los Angeles Times, Catapult, The Believer Magazine and The New Yorker. She has been profiled in The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Streaming live on the library’s YouTube channel.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:Central Library, LAPL
Date:Thursday the 18th
Time:4 pm
Address:Online YouTube Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-series-malaka-gharib
West L.A. Book Club: The Poisonwood Bible at West L.A. Regional Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Book Club participants will discuss The Poisonwood Bible by author Barbara Kingsolver.
RSVP:
For the Zoom link, please contact Carrie at cdavies@lapl.org.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:West L.A. Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Thursday the 18th
Time:6 pm – 7 pm
Address:Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/west-la-book-club
Comic Book & Graphic Novel Discussion for Adults: Fantastic Four: Full Circle at Palms Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us each month for a comic book & graphic novel book discussion. We will rotate between indie titles and titles from Marvel & DC. A great starting point for new readers or devoted fans of the genre.
Participants will discuss Fantastic Four: Full Circle, written and illustrated by Alex Ross.
This program meets via Zoom. Please preregister at site.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:Palm-Rancho Park Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Thursday the 18th
Time:6 pm – 7 pm
Address:Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/comic-book-graphic-novel-discussion-adults-0
Mystery Book Club: Murder on the Red Riverat Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss Murder on the Red River (A Cash Blackbear Mystery #1} by author Marcie R. Rendon.
Introducing Cash Blackbear, a young Ojibwe woman whose visions and grit help solve a brutal murder in this award-winning debut.
1970s, Red River Valley between North Dakota and Minnesota: Renee “Cash” Blackbear is 19 years old and tough as nails. She lives in Fargo, North Dakota, where she drives truck for local farmers, drinks beer, plays pool, and helps solve criminal investigations through the power of her visions. She has one friend, Sheriff Wheaton, her guardian, who helped her out of the broken foster care system.
Marcie Rendon is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, a Pinckley Prize–winning author, playwright, poet, freelance writer, and a community arts activist. Rendon was awarded the McKnight Distinguished Artist Award for 2020. She is a speaker on Native issues, leadership, and writing. Her second Cash Blackbear mystery, Girl Gone Missing, was nominated for the Sue Grafton Memorial Award. Rendon was recognized as a 50 over 50 Change-maker by AARP Minnesota and Pollen in 2018. She lives in Minneapolis.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:Cellar Door Bookstore
Date:Thursday the 18th
Time:6 pm
Address:473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/mystery-book-club-murder-red-river
Montana Avenue Branch Book Group: 109 East Palaceat Montana Branch Library, SMPL – Online Zoom Event
Book Group participants will discuss 109 East Palace by author Robert Oppenheimer.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where:Montana Branch Library, SMPL
Date:Thursday the 18th
Time:7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address:1704 Montana Ave., Santa Monica, 90402
Website: https://smpl.org
Jennifer Croft, with Sarah LaBrie, & The Extinction of Irena Rey at Diesel, a Bookstore – In- Person Event
Jennifer Croft, in conversation with Sarah LaBrie, will discuss her book, The Extinction of Irena Rey.
This novel is a beguiling story about eight translators and their search for a world-renowned author who goes missing in a primeval Polish forest.
Eight translators arrive at a house in a primeval Polish forest on the border of Belarus. It belongs to the world-renowned author Irena Rey, and they are there to translate her magnum opus, Gray Eminence. But within days of their arrival, Irena disappears without a trace. It’s a hilarious, thought-provoking debut novel and a brilliant examination of art, celebrity, the natural world, and the power of language.
Jennifer Croft won a Guggenheim Fellowship for this novel, the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing for her memoir Homesick, and the International Booker Prize for her translation of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights. She is the translator of Federico Falco’s A Perfect Cemetery, Romina Paula’s August, Pedro Mairal’s The Woman from Uruguay, and Olga Tokarczuk’s The Books of Jacob. She has also received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. She lives in Tulsa and Los Angeles.
Sarah LaBrie is a TV writer, memoirist and librettist. She was most recently a producer on Minx. She has also written on Blindspotting, Made for Love, and Love, Victor. Her libretti have been performed at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Boston Court Pasadena, Trinity Church Wall Street and the Baldwin Wallace Conservatory. Her work also appears in Guernica, The Literary Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Sarah’s memoir, No One Gets to Fall Apart, is forthcoming from HarperCollins.
Where:Diesel, a Bookstore
Date:Thursday the 18th
Time:6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Suite 33, Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website:https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Jennifer-Croft-Sarah-LaBrie-Author-signing
Playa Vista Ladies Book Club: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes at The Book Jewel – In-Person Event
Book Club participants will discuss Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, by Caitlin Doughty.
Caitlin Doughty took a job at a crematory and turned morbid curiosity into her life’s work. She took care of bodies of all types and became an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead.
Where:The Book Jewel
Date:Thursday the 18th
Time:7 pm
Address: 6259 W. 87th St., Westchester, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website:https://www.thebookjewel.com/events
Akashic Books All Stars Party! Author Appearances at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Akashic Books is a Brooklyn-based independent company dedicated to publishing urban literary fiction and political nonfiction by authors who are either ignored by the mainstream, or who have no interest in working within the ever-consolidating ranks of the major corporate publishers.
David Yow is an artist, actor, and musician who is best known as the singer of the bands the Jesus Lizard—arguably the best and most popular indie rock band of the 1990s—and Scratch Acid. He lives in Los Angeles. He is the creator of Copycat: And a Litter of Other Cats.
Ian F. Svenonius is the author of the underground best sellers Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock ‘n’ Roll Group, The Psychic Soviet, and Censorship Now!! He was also the host of VBS.tv’s Soft Focus, where he interviewed Mark E. Smith, Genesis P. Orridge, Chan Marshall, Ian MacKaye, and others. As a musician he has created more than twenty albums and countless singles in various rock and roll combos (Escape-ism, Chain & the Gang, The Make-Up, The Nation of Ulysses, etc.). He lives in Los Angeles, CA. Against the Written Word is his latest work.
Justine Bateman is a writer/director/producer with an impressive, decades-long résumé in film and TV that includes a Golden Globe nomination and two Emmy nominations. Bateman wrote and produced her directorial film short debut, Five Minutes, which premiered at the 2017 Toronto Film Festival and was chosen by seven more festivals, including the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival. Violet, Bateman’s critically acclaimed directorial feature film debut of her own script, stars Olivia Munn, Luke Bracey, and Justin Theroux, and was an official selection at the 2021 SXSW Film Festival and the 2021 Toronto Film Festival. Her best-selling first book, Fame: The Hijacking of Reality, was published in 2018 by Akashic. Face: One Square Foot of Skin is her latest work.
Tananarive Due is an award-winning author who teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA. Her stories have been featured on LeVar Burton Reads and Realm, and she is an executive producer on Shudder’s documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. Due and her husband/collaborator, Steven Barnes, wrote for Jordan Peele’s The Twilight Zone and for Shudder’s anthology film Horror Noire. They also cowrote the Black Horror graphic novel The Keeper, illustrated by Marco Finnegan. Due and Barnes cohost a podcast, Lifewriting: Write for Your Life! Her latest work is The Wishing Pool and Other Stories.
Matt Diehl is a journalist and author renowned for his contributions to the New York Times, Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and Interview, among others. Diehl has also written/coauthored nonfiction books such as Notorious C.O.P. (with Derrick Parker), Drinking with Strangers (with Butch Walker), and My So-Called Punk, as well as publishing essays in anthologies spanning The VIBE History of Hip Hop to The Rolling Stone Album Guide.
Best known for his eight years on M*A*S*H and five seasons on Providence, Mike Farrell is also a writer, director, and producer. Farrell has served on human rights and peace delegations to many countries around the world. He is the author of Of Mule and Man and Just Call Me Mike, which was a Los Angeles Times best-seller.
Jerry Stahl has written ten books, including the best-selling memoir Permanent Midnight, made into a movie with Ben Stiller; the essay collection OG Dad; and the novels Pain Killers; I, Fatty; Perv; Plainclothes Naked; Happy Mutant Baby Pills; and Bad Sex on Speed. A Pushcart Prize–winning author, Stahl’s work has appeared in Esquire, Vice, the Believer, Tin House, Los Angeles Review of Books, and the New York Times, among other places. He has written extensively for film and television, including HBO’s Hemingway & Gellhorn, which earned a Writers Guild Award nomination; Bad Boys II; and the cult classic Dr. Caligari; series credits include Maron, CSI, and Escape at Dannemora, for which he received an Emmy nomination. Stahl’s writing has been widely translated, and he has taught with the InsideOUT Writers program for incarcerated youth, edited The Heroin Chronicles for Akashic Books, and participated in the documentary series, San Quentin Film School. He has two daughters, and lives with artist Zoe Hansen. Nein, Nein, Nein! is his latest book.
Nina Revoyr is the author of six novels, including A Student of History; Lost Canyon; The Age of Dreaming, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Southland, a Los Angeles Times best seller and “Best Book” of 2003; The Necessary Hunger; and Wingshooters, which won an Indie Booksellers Choice Award and was selected by O, The Oprah Magazine as one of “10 Titles to Pick Up Now.” Revoyr lives and works in Los Angeles.
Alexis Fleisig is the drummer of Washington, DC’s, Soulside; New York City’s Girls Against Boys, Obits, and Paramount Styles; and Sicily’s Bellini. He grew up in the Dischord punk rock scene in DC and moved to New York City in 1990. He is a photographer and designer and currently lives in Los Angeles. His latest work is Soulside: Washington, DC, 1986–1989.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:Book Soup
Date: Thursday the 18th
Time:7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address:8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/akashic-books-all-stars-party
Poetry Night: Feature Nailah Porter & Open Mic at Harbor College at Black Box Theatre – In-Person Event
Second in a three-part series, Poetry Nights @ HARBOR will feature Nailah Porter performing her work and an Open MIc for other readers/performers.
Nailah Porter, an L.A.-based singer, composer, poet, and photographer,has recorded and toured globally with artists from jazz to rock to hiphop. Lyrics from her EmArcy Records (UMG) debut release,ConJazzNess,were published inVoices from Leimert Park Reduxand her workhas appeared in film, tv, and other publications.
FREE books will be available.
For details email: LOZADACH@LACCD.EDU .
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:Harbor College at Black Box Theatre
Date:Thursday the 18th
Time:7 pm – 9 pm
Address:1111 Figueroa Place, Wilmington, CA 90744
Website: N/A
Annabelle Tometich, with Mariah-Rose Marie, & The Mango Treeat North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Annabelle Tometich, in conversation with Mariah-Rose Marie, will discuss her book, The Mango Tree.
This “witty, humorous, and heartfelt“ (Cinelle Barnes) memoir navigates the tangled branches of Annabelle Tometich’s life, from growing up in Florida as the child of a Filipino mother and a deceased white father to her adult life as a med-school-reject-turned-food-critic.
The Mango Tree is a poignant and deceptively entertaining memoir of growing up as a mixed-race Filipina “nobody” in suburban Florida as Annabelle traces the roots of her upbringing—all the while reckoning with her erratic father’s untimely death in a Fort Myers motel, her fiery mother’s bitter yearning for the country she left behind, and her own journey in the pursuit of belonging.
Annabelle Tometich went from medical-school flunky to line cook to journalist to author. She spent eighteen years as a food writer, editor, and restaurant critic for The New Press in her hometown of Fort Myers, Florida. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today, Catapult, the Tampa BayTimes, and many more publications. Tometich has won more than a dozen awards for her stories, including first place for Features Writing from the Florida Society of News Editors in 2020. She (still) lives in Fort Myers with her husband, two children, and her ever-fiery Filipina mother. You can find her online at annabelleTM.com.
Mariah-Rose Marie is a graphic novelist, story artist, educator, and writer based in Tovaangar, aka Los Ángeles. Their comic, illustration and storyboard work can be seen anywhere from Netflix and HBO Max to The New Yorker, Science for the People Magazine, and Ignatz award-winning work with The Nib. Always with empathy (and often with humor) Mariah-Rose interweaves the individual and the global through stories that reach across political borders and personal identity.
Mariah-Rose is the maker of COOK LIKE YOUR ANCESTORS (Silver Sprocket, 2023) the international recipe collection and guide to intuitive cooking. Their debut fiction graphic novel GO BACK & GET IT (Random House Children’s / Make Me A World) is coming in 2027..
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:North Figueroa Bookshop
Date:Thursday the 18th
Time:7 pm – 9 pm
Address:6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-ltnjh44y
Book Release: Ajay Singh Chaudhary, with Gabrielle Kornafé & The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics In A Burning World at Stories Café & Books – In-Person Event
Ajay Singh Chaudhary, in conversation with Gabrielle Kornafé, will discuss The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics In A Burning World.
Climate change is not only about the exhaustion of the planet, it’s about the exhaustion of so many of us, our lives, our worlds, even our minds. So, what is to be done?
To answer this question, Ajay Singh Chaudhary brings together both the science and the politics of climate change. He shows how a new politics particular to the climate catastrophe demands a bitter struggle between those attached to the power, wealth, and security of “business-as-usual” and all of us, those exhausted, in every sense of the word, by the status quo.
Ajay Singh Chaudhary is the executive director of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and a core faculty member specializing in social and political theory. He holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University and an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics. His research focuses on social and political theory, Frankfurt School critical theory, political economy, political ecology, media, religion, and post-colonial studies. He has written for The Guardian, The Nation, The Baffler, n+1, Los Angeles Review of Books, Quartz, Social Text, Dialectical Anthropology, The Hedgehog Review, Filmmaker Magazine, and 3quarksdaily, among other venues. Ajay’s book on the politics of climate change, The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World, is forthcoming from Repeater Books in February, 2024.
Gabrielle Korn is the author of the essay collection Everybody Else Is Perfect, the novel Yours for the Taking, and its forthcoming sequel, The Shutouts. She’s the former editor-in-chief of Nylon Media and lives in LA with her wife where together they run the Pink Door Artist & Writer residency.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:Stories Books & Café
Date:Thursday the 18th
Time:7 pm – 8 pm
Address:1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
All Women’s Open MIc with Kate Burnsat Village Well Books & Coffee –In-PersonEvent
Village Well is partnering with local trauma-healing poet Kate Burns to provide a platform for female poets, musicians, storytellers, and comedians. While all are welcome to attend, this is an event that aims to amplify women’s voices only.
Acts are limited to 3-5 minutes in length. Sign ups begin at 6:30 pm and conclude at 7:00 pm!
Also, please note that not all material may be considered “family-friendly” so please use discretion when deciding whether or not to bring children.
RSVP on EVENTBRITE!
Where:Village Well Books & Coffee
Date:Thursday the 18th
Time:7 pm – 9 pm
Address:9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/34292
Trish Lundy, with Alexa Donne, & The One That Got Away with Murder at Vroman’s –In-Person Event
Trish Lundy, in conversation with Alexa Donne, will discuss her new book, The One That Got Away with Murder.
Robbie and Trevor Cresmont have a body count—the killer kind. Handsome and privileged, the Crestmont brothers have enough wealth to ensure they’ll never be found guilty of any wrongdoing, even if all of Happy Valley believes they’re behind the deaths of their ex-girlfriends.
But the Crestmonts aren’t the only ones with secrets. Lauren O’Brian might be the new girl at school, but she’s never been a good girl.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:Vroman’s
Date:Thursday the 18th
Time:7 pm
Address:695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91001
Spectacular Storytime at Once Upon a Time Bookstore –In-PersonKids Event
Spectacular Storytime is a weekly time to have fun with books with enthusiastic troubadour, Maddi!
Open to all ages. Free to attend.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date:Friday the 19th
Time:9:30 am
Address:2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website:https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event
Poetry Writing Workshop: Acrostic at Westwood Branch Library, LAPL –In-Person Event
Gubnit Ní Dhúinl presents the fourth of five workshops, each focused on a different poetic form.
April 19: Acrostic
Next month: May 17: Ekphrastic
Equal time will be accorded to the discussion and composition of poetry. Those who come to relish the art form rather than create are also welcome.
This event is supported in part by Poets & Writers.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Friday the 19th
Time:4 pm
Address:Online Event (see site)
Website:https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-writing-workshop
Bookish Author Event: Steve Almond & Rene Denfeld via Southern California News Corp. & Once Upon a Time – In-Person Event
Bookish is an author event hosted by Sandra Tsing Loh, and todays’ featured guests to present and discuss their books are Steve Almond and Rene Denfeld.
Steve Almond will present and discuss Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow: A DIY Manual for the Construction of Stories.
This book is the long-awaited craft book from Steve Almond, based on three decades of writing, failing, and trying again.
Rene Denfeld will present and discuss Sleeping Giants: A Novel.
From the bestselling author of The Child Finder and The Enchanted, acompelling and poignant story of sibling bonds, monsters masquerading as caretakers, terrifying secrets, and the power of love to right even the most egregious wrongs.
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where:Once Upon a Time
Date:Friday the 19th
Time:5 pm
Address:Online Zoom Event
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/bookish-april-2024
Annabelle Tometich & The Mango Tree at Bel Canto Bookstore – In-Person Event
Author Annabelle Tometich will present her book, The Mango Tree.
Bel Canto hosts an evening with author Annabelle Tometich, in conversation with Grace Talusan will discuss her new book, The Mango Tree.
The Mango Tree, a poignant and deceptively entertaining memoir of growing up as a mixed-race Filipina “nobody” in suburban Florida as Annabelle traces the roots of her upbringing—all the while reckoning with her erratic father’s untimely death in a Fort Myers motel, her fiery mother’s bitter yearning for the country she left behind, and her own journey in the pursuit of belonging.
With clear-eyed compassion and piercing honesty, The Mango Tree is a family saga that navigates the tangled branches of Annabelle’s life, from her childhood days in an overflowing house flooded by balikbayan boxes, vegetation, and juicy mangoes, to her winding path from medical school hopeful to restaurant critic. It is a love letter to her fellow Filipino Americans, her lost younger self, and the beloved fruit tree at the heart of her family. But above all, it is an ode to Annabelle’s hot-blooded, whip-smart mother Josefina, a woman who made a life and a home of her own, and without whom Annabelle would not have herself.
Annabelle Tometich went from medical-school flunky to line cook to journalist to author. She spent eighteen years as a food writer, editor, and restaurant critic for The News-Press in her hometown of Fort Myers, Florida. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, USA Today, Catapult, the Tampa Bay Times, and many more publications. Tometich has won more than a dozen awards for her stories, including first place for Features Writing from the Florida Society of News Editors in 2020. She (still) lives in Fort Myers with her husband, two children, and her ever-fiery Filipina mother. You can find her online at annabelleTM.com.
Grace Talusan is a Lecturer in the Nonfiction Writing Program in the Department of English at Brown University. She earned an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, in the fiction writing program and taught at the University of Oregon, Tufts University, and Brandeis University, where she was the Fannie Hurst Writer-in-Residence. Her memoir, The Body Papers, won the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing and the Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction. She was born in the Philippines, raised in New England, and lives outside of Boston.
Where: Bel Canto Books, KUBO Long Beach
Date:Friday the 19th
Time:6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 3976 Atlantic Avenue Long Beach, CA 90807
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/annabelle-tometich-the-mango-tree-tickets-803250653327
The Poetry Brothel LA: Poetic Pleasure Potions at El Cid on Sunset – In-Person Event
Take a sip from a spellbound blend of poetry & movement, where words seduce and bodies dance, to create a delicious voyage of desire.
Step into the intoxicating world of ‘Poetic Pleasure Potions,’ where every sip of verse is a seductive elixir for the soul. Immerse yourself in a whirlwind of desire as poetry, movement, and live music sing a symphony of sensuality. Let words flow, each line a tantalizing taste of forbidden fruit, while bodies move in rhythmic harmony, a dance of temptation under the dim glow of stage lights.
Indulge in one-on-one poetry readings, where whispers of passion caress your ears like silk. This isn’t just a show; it’s an immersive experience, a journey into the depths of your desires. Lose yourself in the enchantment of the night, where fantasies take flight and inhibitions fade. Join us for a night of poetic revelry, where every moment is a sip of ecstasy and every sensation leaves you craving more.
Madam Tallula presents a rotating cast of poets who impart their work as purveyors of private poetry readings in secret, hidden, well-appointed chambers. You may avail yourself of your choice of poet for tokens at any time during the event.
On the patio, the troupe presents Tarot readings, poetic souvenirs, live typewriter poetry, and occasional dance and musical performances.
On the stage, a three-hour roster of Vaudeville variety entertainment… and words, words, words! The El Cid tapas kitchen and bar will be open for dinner and drinks throughout.
Where: El Cid on Sunset
Date:Friday the 19th
Time:7 pm (Doors at 6:30)
Address: 3976 Atlantic Avenue Long Beach, CA 90807
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-poetry-brothel
Author Event: Kleaver Cruz & The Black Joy Project at Reparations Club – In-Person Event
Author Kleaver Cruz, in conversation with Dash Harris, will join us to celebrate their breathtaking collection of images depicting Black joy in The Black Joy Project
A lover of words and their meanings across languages, Kleaver Cruz (they/them) was born and raised in Uptown, NYC between The Bronx and Washington Heights with their twin brother and small Dominican family. Kleaver is a Black queer writer and educator who has presented and conducted work across the African Diaspora and continent in places like Brazil, South Africa, and The Netherlands, among other countries. Kleaver is the Facilitator of The Black Joy Project, a digital and real-world affirmation that Black joy is resistance. They believe in the power of words to write the stories that did not exist when they needed them the most.
Dash Harris is a Peabody-award winning multimedia journalist, filmmaker and producer, historian and educator, facilitator, and coach focused on AfroDiasporic identities, histories, and cultures. Producer and Director of Negro: A Docu-Series on Latinx Identity and Co-Founder of AfroLatinx Travel, a travel and community-building resource for learning about the African Diaspora in Latin America, led by Black Latin American locals and producer of “Radio Caña Negra podcast and trainer for their “Antiblackness in the Latine Community” workshops.
NOTE: See site for link and details.
Where:Reparations Club
Date:Friday the 19th
Time:7 pm
Address:3054 S. Victoria Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90016
Website: https://rep.club/products/kleaver-cruz-event
L.A. Get Down Festival: Wordsmith Achievement Award – In-Person Event
LA Get Down, a month-long celebration of Hip Hop & Spoken Word in honor of National Poetry Month, takes place every April at Greenway Court Theatre.
This event presents a Workshop and Welcoming Ceremony from Dante Basco.
The workshop and performance is titled From Rufio to Zukp.
$10 admission.
Where: The Greenway Court Theatre
Date: Friday the 14th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 544 North Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036
Website: https://greenwaycourttheatre.org/lagetdown2024/
SWAAM Spoken Word Art & Music Event & Open Mic by Lorenzo Frank at Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center – In-Person Event
Join us to hear a featured poet, plus an Open Mic, hosted by Lorenzo Frank on the first and third Fridays of the month.
Featured artist TBA
Lorenzo Frank is the author of ‘Nzinga Teaches/Learns a Lesson’ book series.
NOTE: See site for costs, guidelines, and details.
Where: Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center
Date: Friday the 19th
Time: 8 pm – 11 pm
Address: 4305 Degnan Blvd., Leimert Park, Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.facebook.com/swaampoetry
Third Fridays Rapp Saloon Reading Series, with host Elena Secota, via Rapp Saloon – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Third Fridays at Rapp Saloon Open Mic & Featured Readers is an event offered every 3rd Friday of the month, curated by host Elena Secota.
Featuring: Christina A. Bejan, Alice Pero, Sean Hill, Angela Chirila.
RSVP and details at site.
Share your voice at the Open Mic, where there is a time limit of 4 minutes max. Sign-ups are: 8 pm – 8:30 pm.
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Rapp Saloon at HISUA
Date: Friday the 19th
Time: 8:30 pm – 11 pm
Address: 1436 2nd St., Santa Monica, CA 90401 (Zoom link in bio)
Website: https://www.facebook.com
2024 Annual L.A. Times Festival of Books at University of Southern California –In-Person Event
Find your spark at the 2024 L.A. Times Festival of Books, April 20-21 on the USC campus. Explore this year’s indoor and outdoor events including over 200 conversations and performances, book signings, cooking demos, poetry readings, bilingual programming and more.
Explore this year’s indoor and outdoor events including over 200 conversations and performances, book signings, cooking demos, poetry readings, bilingual programming and more.
Poet Laureate Lynne Thompson will start of readers at the Poetry Stage.
Dozens of poets, journalists and writers of all genres, including celebrities, will be featured at numerous stages and locations throughout the USC campus, and books will be available for purchase and signing at many venues and in a garden of vendor displays.
Special authors and discussions today include: George Stephanopoulos, Abraham Verghese, John Green, Jonathan Lethem, Jane Smiley, Karen Grigsby Gates, Naomi Hirahara, Joe Ide, Tod Goldberg, Alex Espinoza, Susan Straight, Lois Lowrey, Myriam Gurba, Patt Morrison, RuPaul, Sarah Maclay, Ed Begley Jr., Luis Alfaro, Mona Simpson, D.J. Waldie, and more!
General admission is free, and the festival will also feature ticketed events with authors and celebrities.
NOTE: See site for schedule and details.
Where:University of Southern California
Date:Saturday the 20th (Day 1 of 2)
Time:10 am – 6 pm
Address: 3551 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90089
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/
Montana Notable Fiction Book Group: Fates and Furiesvia Montana Branch Library, SMPL – Online Zoom Event
Notable Fiction Book Group participants will discuss Fates and Furies by author Lauren Groff.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where:Montana Branch Library, SMPL
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time:11 am – 12 pm
Address:Online Zoom Event
Website: https://smpl.org
Poetry Workshop at Central Library, LAPL –In-Person Event
Join this inclusive, in-person poetry workshop where poets of all levels can come together, share their work, and foster a vibrant poetry community. Participants are invited to bring a poem, no longer than one page, to read and receive valuable feedback from fellow poets. Engage in thoughtful discussions and provide your own insights on the work of others. Whether you’re a seasoned poet or just starting out, this workshop offers a supportive environment, refine your craft, connect with like-minded individuals, and celebrate the power of words.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:Central Library, LAPL, Literature & Fiction Study Rooms
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time:11 am – 2 pm
Address: 630 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-workshop-1
Celebration of the Friends of the Mar Vista Library: 40 Years of Service at Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL –In-Person Event
Join this celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Friends of the Mar Vista Library, a sustaining community force supporting our local library for four decades. Please join us for a community-wide party, a keynote speech by esteemed speakers, a special storytime, a folkloric dance, container gardening, library giveaways, and more! There is something for everybody of any age.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time:11 am – 2 pm
Address: 12066 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90066
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/celebration-friends-mar-vista-library-40-years-service
Celebration of Poetry Month at Pico Union Branch Library, LAPL –In-Person Event
In celebration of National Poetry Month, we’re excited to feature California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick and Los Angeles Youth Laureate Sierra Leone Anderson alongside local poets. They will recite their poetry and announce the poetry contest winner. All Pico Union students in grades K-12 are eligible.
To enter: Write a poem inspired by the themes of libraries, books, community, or the environment. Send your submission to secretary@picounionnc.org. This contest is sponsored by the Pico Union Friends of the Library.
This program is supported by Los Angeles Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez and Senator Maria Elena Durazo with participation from the following organizations: Pico Union Project, Levitt Pavillion Los Angeles, Pathways LA, LA Department of Aging, UCLA’s Center for Health Equity, Assurance Wireless, J.U.I.C.E., L.A. Metro, WINTER: Women in non-traditional Employment Roles, The People Concern, Hospitality Training Academy and El Centro Del Pueblo.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:Pico Union Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time:11 am – 2 pm
Address: 1630 S. Alvarado St., Los Angeles, CA 90006
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/pico-union-library-poetry-event
Book Launch & Signing: Author Naomi Hirahara & Illustrator Sarah Demonteverde & A Child’s Intro to AAPI History via Bel Canto Bookstore – Online Event
Author Naomi Hirahara and illustrator Sarah Demonteverde will present their book, A Childs’ Intro to AAPI History.
The perfect primer for kids ages 8-12, A Child’s Introduction to Asian American and Pacific Islander History is packed with remarkable stories, groundbreaking events, and inspirational people, that have made a lasting impact on the history and culture of the United States.
Featuring charming illustrations and a lively design, as well as a pull-out poster, A Child’s Introduction to Asian American and Pacific Islander History is much-needed addition every home library and classroom.
Naomi Hirahara is the author of Mary Higgins Clark and Edgar award-winning mysteries and history books for both adults and children. TERMINAL ISLAND, a nonfiction book co-written by her and Geraldine Knatz, will be reissued in hardcover by the Los Angeles Public Library (Angel City Press) in March. She has also written one middle-grade novel, 1001 CRANES.
Sarah Demonteverde is a Filipino-American Illustrator and Designer based in the Greater Los Angeles Area. Combining her love for the vividness of life and unique stories, she enjoys illustrating nature, culture, fantasy, history, and other enjoyable subject matter – especially when it comes to creating artwork that children and adults alike can enjoy. It is her passion to create impactful stories and products – be it through design for digital content, children’s books, stationery, and more.
Where: Bel Canto Books, KUBO Long Beach
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time:12 pm – 1:30 pm
Address: 3976 Atlantic Avenue Long Beach, CA 90807
Erica Silverman & The City Sings Green at Children’s Book World –In-Person Kids Event
Join author Erica Silverman to talk about The City Sings Green and celebrate both Earth Day and Poetry Month.
Hear poems from author Erica Silverman and special guest Hope Anita Smith, the emeritus Poet Laureate of the City of El Segundo.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:Children’s Book World
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time: 12:30 pm
Address: 10580 1/2 W, Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90064
Website: https://www.childrensbookworld.com/event/city-sings-green- & La NIna De Mis Ojosearth-day-poetry-month-book-celebration-author-erica-silverman-saturday-april
Poetry Month Celebration with Paola Gutierrez and Friends at Anaheim Central Library –In-PersonEvent
Meet distinguished writer and poet Paola Gutierrez, who will read from her new poetry book, La Nina De Mis Ojos.
Special guest poet performances by: Brenda Vaca, Diosa Xochiquetzalcoatl, and Juan Farias.
Musical guests: Maya Garza and Rodrigo Navarro.
Open to the public. Free to attend.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:Anaheim Central Library, Multipurpose Room
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time:1 pm – 3 pm
Address:500 W. Broadway, Anaheim, CA 92805
Website:https://www.anaheim.net/Calendar.aspx?EID=36153
Santa Monica Inaugural Poet Laureate Workshop & Reception
at Santa Monica Main Library –In-PersonEvent
Meet Santa Monica’s First Poet Laureate Anne Carmack and attend an introductory poetry workshop, followed by a reception to celebrate her first-year term.
Anne Carmack is a Santa Monica-based writer and multidisciplinary artist whose work seeks to explore the shape-shifting themes of personal narrative, individual/cultural identity, philosophy, and spirituality by wholly embracing a wide range of media including poetry, painting, photography, filmmaking, storytelling, and screenwriting. Her debut poetry collection is My Own Body Breathing (2020).
Open to the public. Free to attend.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:Santa Monica Main Library, SMPL
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time:2 pm – 4 pm
Address:601 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90304
Website:https://smpl.org
Big Read: The Carlos Bulosan Book Club at Echo Park Branch Library, LAPL –In-Person Event
The Carlos Bulosan Book Club will host a lively book club discussion of this year’s Big Read selection, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast.
NOTE: See site for Zoom details.
Where:Echo Park Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 1410 W. Temple St., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-carlos-bulosan-book-club-0
Earth Day Cabaret: A Day of Poetry & Performance hosted by Gregory Bell at Beyond BaroqueLiterary Arts Center – In-Person Event
Join us for an exploration in word, music & song, and metaphysical vaudeville in celebration of planet earth. Hosted by Gregory Bell.
Who among us does not owe our very being to this planet, this spawning ground of life, this source, this sustenance, this Earth. We gather together to celebrate our unity with nature and our gratitude for this magnificent gift. But more than that: we humans are soiling our nest. Rachel Carson’s resounding alarm, Silent Spring, is said to have begun the Environmental Movement.
Much credit to her, but I feel the environmental movement has always abided in those who live close to the land—indigenous people, certainly, and farmers. Now, we’ve removed ourselves to cities and the hurry-worry of our own creation. Those who remain on the land are resorting to poisons to boost production. Now, we’re confronted with the existential threat we’ve created. How? We’re face melting glaciers, rising oceans, drought & wildfires, mass migrations—ultimately, the breakdown of ecological, economic and social systems—driven by the Climate Crisis we’ve brought on ourselves.
What to do? It seems we’ve got to fall in love with Earth again. Love it enough to change our ways. Love it enough to seek justice of those who would deceive us and despoil our home in the name of profit. Meanwhile, we need a path forward.
NOTE: See site for further details, and information.
Where:Beyond Baroque
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time:2 pm
Address:681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/earth-day-cabaret-tickets-881067234817?aff=oddtdtcreator
L.A. Get Down Festival: Trans Conversation Project – Part 1 at The Greenway Court Theatre –In-PersonEvent
L.A. Get Down Festival is held on weekends in the month of April (National Poetry Month) at the Greenway Court Theatre.
Trans Conversation Project -Part 1: Write Your Story is hosted by Maddox Pennington.
$10 admission.
Where:The Greenway Court Theatre
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time:2 pm
Address:544 North Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036
Website:https://greenwaycourttheatre.org/lagetdown2024/ or https://greenwaycourttheatre.org
Expressions L.A. Poetry Reading Series and Open Mic at Echo Park Branch Library, LAPL –In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Join us in-person or via Zoom for Expressions L.A. Poetry Reading Series, featuring poetry readings and open poetry mic.
RSVP:
Please email studio@lapl.org for participation details.
NOTE: See site for Zoom details.
Where:Studio Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time: 3 pm
Address: 12511 Moorpark St., Studio City, CA 91604
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/expressions-la-poetry-reading-series-and-open-mic-3
Saturday Afternoon Poetry: Featured Readings & Four Feathers Press –Online Zoom Event
Poetry Reading DKC & JRT, featured: Chuka Susan Chesney, Rick Leddy & R A Ruadh + Poets published in Four Feathers Press online edition: Remember When.
Don Kingfisher Campbellhosts and curates these events.
Where:Saturday Afternoon Poetry
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time:3 pm – 5 pm
Address:Online Event (see site)
Website:http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Sci-Fi Fantasy Book Club: Witch Kingat Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Book club participants will discuss Witch King (The Kissing World #1) by Martha Wells
After being murdered, his consciousness dormant and unaware of the passing of time while confined in an elaborate water trap, Kai wakes to find a lesser mage attempting to harness Kai’s magic to his own advantage. That was never going to go well.
But why was Kai imprisoned in he first place? What has changed in the world since his assassination? And why does the Rising World Coalition appear to be growing in influence.
Kai will need to pull his allies close and draw on all his pain magic if he is to answer even the least of these questions. He’s not going to like the answers.
Martha Wells has written many novels, including the New York Times and USA Today-bestselling Murderbot Diaries series, which has won multiple Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and Alex Awards. Other titles include Witch King, City of Bones, The Wizard Hunters, Wheel of the Infinite, the Books of the Raksura series (beginning with The Cloud Roads and ending with The Harbors of the Sun), and the Nebula-nominated The Death of the Necromancer, as well as YA fantasy novels, short stories, and nonfiction.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:Cellar Door Bookstore
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time:5 pm
Address:473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/sci-fi-fantasy-book-club-witch-king
Viva Poesia Readings with Cultura Con Llantas at The CHEECH, Riverside – In-Person Event
Join us at The Cheech for an evening of powerful poetic voices of the Chicano community.
Meet the artists:
Laura Arajo S: The everyday hustle of life inspires Laura to write beautiful, meaningful, and transformative narratives. The Mexican-born, queer Chicana creates and works tirelessly to produce literary work and visual art in the Inland Empire where she resides with her wife.
Collaborations with artists from the region have materialized into stage productions, multimedia exhibits, and transmedia projects that stir and still the soul. La palabra es alma, hence, her words in combination with various forms of media embody the weaving of identity, memory, multiple self, and collective being. Her work has been showcased at the McCallum Theater, Manhattan Beach Arts Center, Coachella Valley Arts Center, California Museum of Photography, Millard Sheets Art Center, and San Bernardino Valley College.
Alma Rosa Azul is a Chicana spoken word poet, community organizer, and mother. She is Co-founder of Barrio Fuerza, an autonomous community space in Downtown, San Bernardino, Host of Barrio Poetry Club Open Mic and facilitator of Word Blossom a free writing group that meets at the Garcia Center for the Arts. She’s collaborated through the years with several major platforms including but not limited to The Main Museum, MITÚ, Latina Magazine, L.A Taco, and La Plaza de la Raza. When she isn’t reading poetry on the mic, she can be found reading them into her children, the clouds, or a freshly made blue tortilla.
Joseph Rios is the author of Shadowboxing: Poems & Impersonations, winner of the American Book Award. He is the current Poet Laureate of Fresno, CA and a Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford University. His poems can be found at Poem-A-Day, Huizache, the San Francisco Chronicle, and on Metro buses and trains in Los Angeles.
Brenda Vaca is a Xicana poet, author, and independent publisher from Sejatnga, Unceded Tongva Territory, known as South Whittier, CA. She earned her B.A. in English at U.C.Berkeley, with a Minor in Creative Writing and later earned a Master of Divinity and Master of Arts in Biblical Languages at the Pacific School of Religion/Graduate Theological Union. Riot of Roses is her debut collection of poetry published by her indie house, Riot of Roses Publishing House.
Matthew ‘Cuban’ Hernandez is a poet, emcee, speaker, actor, and performance coach from Jacksonville, Florida. He has toured as far as Abu Dhabi and nearly every major city in the United States and Europe, performing, teaching and coaching poetry. A teaching artist for over 15 years, Matthew has spent the last ten years working in youth detention centers across Los Angeles County, currently serving as the Director of Camp Programming for Street Poets, Inc. In addition, he is a current Lead Teacher and Co-Founder of Spoken Literature Art Movement. Cuban has opened for artists such as Wu-Tang, performed for platforms such as BuzzFeed and NPR and even appeared on the award-winning television show, Better Things. Matthew is also a three-time Southern Fried poetry slam champion and an award-winning poetry coach. Cuban’s favorite activity is making people feel great; sometimes he does this through hip hop and poetry.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 4401 W. 8th St., Los Angeles, CA 90005
Website: https://riversideartmuseum.org/events/free-admission-la-poesia/
Get Lit – Words Ignite: 2024 Classic SLAM Finals at The Wilshire Ebell Theatre – In-Person Event
An Evening of Youth Spoken Word Poetry and the culmination of Get Lit’s in-school program is the annual Classic SLAM, with fresh perspectives that demonstrate storytelling at the highest level.
The Classic Slam is the culmination of Get Lit’s in-school programming and one of the largest Spoken Word events in the country. Now in its 13th year, the Classic Slam has grown to a multiple-day event held in historic theaters with thousands of dollars in prize money.
Last year, 31 schools from across Southern California sent teams of students to share in the excitement. Thousands of students attended the event live, and recordings of the performances went viral with over 350,000 hours of watch time.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: Wilshire Ebell Theatre
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm (Doors at 5 pm)
Address: 4401 W. 8th St., Los Angeles, CA 90005
Pages on Stages: Book Release of Brandon Elliott’s Black Out the Sun at The Sims Library – In-Person Event
Celebrate the book release of Black Out the Sun, by author Brandon Elliott.
This event is hosted by Gia and features: Brandon Elliott, Sakile Odimo, Ruddy Lopez, Juan Amador and Kaylee Hannah.
Brandon Elliott is a Los Angeles poet who was deeply influenced by Tupac and Eminem. His journey with writing started at age 8, and he wrote his first poem at age 12. He uses poetry to heal and express his innermost thoughts and feelings, often drawing attention to topics he feels that can help others. His whole focus is an attempt at understanding the society, world and universe he lives in. Black Out The Sun is a collection of poetry written during one of the most trying times in his life. Writing gave him a means of expression that speaking could not.
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: Sims Library of Poetry
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm (Doors at 5 pm)
Address: 2702 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
L.A. Get Dwon: Diverse Voices L.A. POET Event at Greenway Court Theatre – In-Person Event
Celebrate Diverse Voices L.A. at LAGD with feature
Queen Quannie, DJ Lotus Smoke, Nobody Flowers, ProPhessor X, Paris Nicole, Besskepp, Brutha Gimel.
Join us for a diverse night of poetry ending in a battle of (Old School) VS (New School) Hip Hop.
Dj Lotus Smoke!
Honoring one of the founders of DPL– Brutha Gimel!
NOTE: See site for tickets and details.
Where: Greenway Court Theater
Date:Saturday the 20th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 544 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036
2024 Annual L.A. Times Festival of Books at University of Southern California (Day 2 of 2) –In-Person Event
Find your spark at the 2024 L.A. Times Festival of Books, April 20-21 on the USC campus. Explore this year’s indoor and outdoor events including over 200 conversations and performances, book signings, cooking demos, poetry readings, bilingual programming and more.
Explore this year’s indoor and outdoor events including over 200 conversations and performances, book signings, cooking demos, poetry readings, bilingual programming and more.
Kazim Ali will start off readers at the Poetry Stage.
Dozens of poets, journalists and writers of all genres, including celebrities, will be featured at numerous stages and locations throughout the USC campus, and books will be available for purchase and signing at many venues and in a garden of vendor displays.
Special authors and discussions today include: Victoria Chang, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Héctor Tobar, Natalie Molina, Octavia Spencer, Lauren Graham, Diane Smith, Karen Tei Yamash*ta, Denise Hamilton, Hanif Abdurraqib, Sowmya Krishnamurthy, Traci Thomas, Michael R. Jackson, Morgan Parker, Mark Harmon, Michael Hiltzik, Justin Torres, Nadxieli Nieto, Aimee Liu, Lydia Millet, Pico Iyer, José Andrés, Laurie Ochoa, Yesika Salgado, Attica Locke, Dulce Sloan, Gustavo Arellano, David Mamet, Yvonne Villarreal Ivy Pochoda, David L. Ulin, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Justin Torres, Jeremy Ra, and more!
General admission is free, and the festival will also feature ticketed events with authors and celebrities.
NOTE: See site for schedule and details.
Where:University of Southern California
Date:Sunday the 21st (Day 2 of 2)
Time:10 am – 5 pm
Address: 3551 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90089
Website: https://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/
Children’s Storytime: Ty-Juana Taylor & A Life of Song at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Kids Event
Join us to hear author Ty-Juana Taylor present her children’s bookA Life of Song.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:North Figueroa Bookshop
Date:Sunday the 21st
Time:12 pm
Address:6040 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/event/#calendar-8a0f87f6-17d6-4f10-9815-04df4c8251ba-event-ltnji9ur
Banned Books Reading Group at West Los Angeles Regional Branch Library, LAPL –In-Person Event
The banned books reading group will be reading materials that have been historically challenged or are on the American Library Association’s current challenge list. Copies will be available for loan at the library.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:West L.A. Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date:Sunday the 21st
Time: 2 pm
Address: 11380 Santa Monica, Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/banned-books-reading-group
Bucket List Book Club: War and Peaceat Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event
Book club participants will discuss War and Peace, by author Leo Tolstoy.
NOTE: See site for details.
Where:Cellar Door Bookstore
Date:Sunday the 21st
Time:3 pm
Address:473 E. Alessandro Blvd., Suite B, Riverside, CA 92508
Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/bucket-list-book-club-war-and-peace-volumes-1-2
Esme Shapiro and Daniel Kauffman, & Roy Is Not a Dog at Diesel, A Bookstore – In-Person Event
Esme Shapiro and Daniel Kauffman will discuss and sign their picture book, Roy Is Not a Dog.
Take a ride down Lilypod Lane with Weasel and Pam Pam as they try to solve a mystery in their neighborhood in this hilariously fetching picture book: could their peculiar neighbor actually be a dog in disguise?
On Lilypod Lane, everyone knows everything about everybody…or so they believe! When curious paperboy Weasel encounters his mysterious neighbor Roy on his route, he becomes convinced that Roy is actually a dog! But when his friend Pam Pam disagrees, Weasel must put on his detective cap and do his best sleuthing to reveal Roy’s extraordinary secret, and prove that not everything is as it seems, once and for all! An endearingly offbeat picture book that celebrates neighbors and neighborhoods, Roy Is Not a Dog delivers laughs and lessons about accepting others for who they are as well as the risks and rewards of showing your true self.
Esmé Shapiro grew up in Laurel Canyon, California and Ontario, Canada, and is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. Her previous picture books include Ooko, which was nominated for a Governor General’s Literary Award in 2016, Alma and the Beast, Carol and the Pickle-Toad and, most recently, My Self, Your Self. Esmé also illustrated Yak and Dove by Kyo Maclear, Eliza: The Story of Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton by Margaret McNamara and A Garden of Creatures by Sheila Heti. Esmé lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband, Daniel, and their two dogs.
Daniel Newell Kaufman is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker whose documentaries and short films have played at the SXSW, Tribeca and Cannes Lions film festivals. Raised in both Los Angeles and Vermont, Daniel’s life is driven by a deep curiosity and love of people. This is Daniel’s debut picture book. He lives with his wife and co-author, Esmé Shapiro, in an old farmhouse in the Hudson Valley.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where:Diesel, A Bookstore
Date:Sunday the 21st
Time:3 pm
Address:225 26thSt., Suite 33., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website:https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Esme-Shapiro-Daniel-Kaufman-Author-signing
National Poetry Month Workshop with A.K. Toney at Elysian Valley Arts Collective –In-PersonEvent
Poetry Book Rhythms: A Start to Finish Writing Art Performance Class Series is free and is led by A.K. Toney.
Join poet, spoken word performer and educator A.K. Toney for a journey into learning poetry, creating your own poetry art book, making rhythms to accompany your poetry and performing at a spoken word show in the heart of Frogtown.
A.K. Toney, a modern-day Griot, has dedicated his life to writing, performing and teaching poetry to young people. With over twenty years of experience in education and writing workshops, Toney has taught workshops and performed at some of our city’s most revered spaces including Angel’s Gate Cultural Center, LA County Museum of Art, The Natural History Museum and has worked as an educator with LAUSD and Vista Americorps, Watts Learning Center K-5 Charter School.
NOTE: See WEBSITE for RSVP and details.
Where:Elysian Valley Arts Collective
Date:Sunday the 21st
Time:3 pm – 5 pm
Address:1901 Blake Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90039
Website: https://www.evartscollective.com/event-details/
List-Making as Creator-Making Workshop at The Book Jewel – In-Person Event
Join an in-store generative workshop led by Joseph Paulson to explore one of our most quotidian behaviors and how it might be imagined ad an artistic framework.
RSVP for more info at 424-750-9991.
Where:The Book Jewel
Date:Sunday the 21st
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm
Address: 6259 W. 87th St., Westchester, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Website: https://www.thebookjewel.com/events
L.A. Get Down Festival: A Celebration of Hip Hop & Spoken Word at The Greenway Court Theatre –In-PersonEvent
L.A. Get Down Festival celebrates Youth Day @MTP, hosted by SoulStuf.
SoulStuf is a second generation Filipino-American spoken word poet who speaks on the Song, Truth Universal, and Flow of his own wandering spirit. Originally trained in the art of hip-hop and improv, Christian has learned from legendary spaces such as The Spoken Literature Art Movement at Art-Share LA, The Upright Citizens Brigade on Sunset, and Richard Horvitz’s 5 Steps To Success in North Hollywood.
$10 admission.
Where:The Greenway Court Theatre
Date:Sunday the 20th
Time: 2:15 pm
Address:544 North Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036
Website:https://greenwaycourttheatre.org/lagetdown2024/ or https://greenwaycourttheatre.org
Focus on Craft Book Club:Meet Cute Diaryat The Ripped Bodice –In-PersonEvent
April’s Focus on Craft Book Club participants will discussMeet Cute Diary: A Novel,by authorEmery Lee. Please join us.
Meet Cute Diary, is a heart-felt rom-com about how a transgender teen’s first love challenges his ideas about perfect relationships.
No membership is necessary, feel free to show up!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where:The Ripped Bodice
Date:Sunday the 21st
Time:7:15 pm – 8:30 pm
Address:Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website:https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
