Los Angeles Literature Events: 3/03/25 – 3/09/25 (2025)

Participants will discussThornhill, byPam Smy, a slightly spooky book, told half in images and half in journal entries.

Check out a copy at the Mar Vista reference desk.

Participants will also decorate a journal to take home with them.

Readers in elementary, middle, or high school are welcome.

Where:Mar Vista Branch Library, LAPL

Date:Monday the 3^rd

Time:5:30 pm – 6:30 pm

Address:12006 Venice Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90066

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/middle-grade-book-club-2

R.U.P.O. Open Mic at Back to the Grind in Riverside – In-Person Event

RUPO Open Mic is every Monday Night at Back to the Grind in Riverside.

Every Monday at 7 pm to 9 pm. Sign-ups are at 6:30 pm and in person only, $4 cash admission. See you then!

NOTE:See site for link and details.

Where:Back to the Grind, Riverside

Date:Monday the 3^rd

Time:7 pm – 9 pm

Mics and Mugs Open Mic is offered every Monday Night at Equator Coffees Culver City.

See site for details.

2 Item purchase per person.

Where:Equator Coffees

Date:Monday the 3^rd

Time:6:30 pm

Address:8900 Venice Blvd. #105, Culver City, CA 90232

Website:https://www.instagram.com

NEW DATE: Shea Andreone, with Shayla The Artist, Felicia Andrews, Laura Dine Million, and Abbe Feder & Carry On: True Stories of the Wonder and Heartbreak of Trying to Start a Family at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Shea Andreone, in conversation with Shayla The Artist, Felicia Andrews, Laura Dine Million, and Abbe Feder, will discuss and sign Carry On: True Stories of the Wonder and Heartbreak of Trying to Start a Family.

Making babies.

For some, it’s virtually effortless – an accident, a “happy surprise”, or an easily executed plan. But for others, this almost universal drive to start a family does not come quite so effortlessly. In fact, for many, it’s can be a frustrating and expensive quest that in some cases never pays off, leaving them childless. These people dearly want what many of us barely give a second thought: having a baby. To start a family. To be a mom. To be a dad. To be a parent. And these people will go to remarkable, at times almost unbelievable lengths, to do just that.

Carry On is about those people. Carry On documents, in strikingly poignant detail, their epic plights, giving voice to and celebrating their wholly unique journeys. Whether you’re already a parent, trying desperately to become one, or find yourself somewhere in the middle, Carry On is an authentic, compelling, and relatable collection of essays based on first-person interviews with some of the most determined people in the world.

Where:Book Soup

Date:Monday the 3^rd

Time:7 pm – 9 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/shea-andreone

At Skylight: Haley Mlotek,with Aiden Arata, &No Faultat Skylight – In-Person Event

Haley Mlotek, in conversation withAiden Arata,will discuss her bookNo Fault.

An intimate and candid account of one of the most romantic and revolutionary relationships: divorce.

Divorce was everything for Haley Mlotek. As a child, she listened to her twice-divorced grandmother tell stories about her “husbands.” As a pre-teen, she answered the phones for her mother’s mediation and marriage counseling practice and typed out the paperwork for couples in the process of leaving each other. She grew up with the sense that divorce was an outcome to both resist and desire, an ordeal that promised something better on the other side of something bad. But when she herself went on to marry—and then divorce—the man she had been with for twelve years, suddenly, she had to reconsider her generation’s inherited understanding of the institution.

Deftly combining her personal story with wry, searching social and literary exploration, No Fault is a deeply felt and radiant account of 21st century divorce, the remarkably common and seemingly singular experience, and what it reveals about our society and our desires for family, love, and friendship.

Haley Mlotek is a writer, editor, and organizer. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Nation, Bookforum, The Paris Review, The Columbia Journalism Review, Vogue, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, Hazlitt, and n+1, among others. She is a founding member of the Freelance Solidarity Project in the National Writers Union, teaches in the English and Journalism departments at Concordia University, and is the editorial lead at Feeld. Previously, Haley was the deputy editor of SSENSE, the style editor of MTV News, the editor of The Hairpin, and the publisher of WORN Fashion Journal.

Aiden Arata is a writer and artist whose writing has been published in BOMB, The Rumpus, Hobart, The Fanzine, and other publications, as well as NDA: An Autofiction Anthology (Archway Editions 2022). Arata’s visual and video work has been featured on platforms including Vice, The Cut, Harper’s Bazaar, Mashable, and The Washington Post. Her first essay collection, You Have a New Memory, is forthcoming from Grand Central Publishing (July 2025). She lives in Los Angeles and on the internet as @aidenarata.

Where:Skylight

Date:Monday the 3^rd

Time:7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-haley-mlotek-presents-no-fault-w-aiden-arata

Rick Jackson and Matthew McGough & Black Tunnel White Magic: A Murder, a Detective’s Obsession, and ’90s Los Angeles at the Brink at Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Detective Rick Jackson, a decorated LAPD detective and a key inspiration in the development of Harry Bosch, in conversation with Matthew McGough, delivers a shocking and immersive look into the one case he could never let go: Black Tunnel White Magic: A Murder, a Detective’s Obsession, and ’90s Los Angeles at the Brink.

In June 1990, Ronald Baker, a straight-A UCLA student, was found repeatedly stabbed to death in a tunnel near Spahn Ranch, where Charles Manson and his followers once lived. Shortly thereafter, Detective Rick Jackson and his partner, Frank Garcia, were assigned the case. Yet the facts made no sense. Who would have a motive to kill Ron Baker in such a grisly manor? Was the proximity to the Manson ranch related to the murder? And what about the pentagram pendant Ron wore around his neck?

Jackson and Garcia soon focused their investigation on Baker’s two male roommates, one Black, and one white. What emerges is at once a story of confounding betrayal and cold-hearted intentions, as well as a larger portrait of an embattled Los Angeles, a city in the grip of the Satanic Panic and grappling with questions of racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of Rodney King.

In straightforward, matter-of-fact prose, Rick Jackson, the now-retired police detective who helped inspire Michael Connelly’s beloved Harry Bosch, along with co-writer, Matthew McGough, take us through the events as he and his partner experienced them, piecing together the truth with each emerging clue. Black Tunnel White Magic is the true story of a murder in cold blood, deception and betrayal, and a city at the brink, set forth by the only man who could tell it.

Where:Vroman’s

Date:Monday the 3^rd

Time:7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website:https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-03/rick-jackson-and-matthew-mcgough-discuss-black-tunnel-white-magic-murder

March Continuing Story Book Club:The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakesat The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

March’s participants will discussThe Ballad of Songbirds and Snakesby authorSuzanne Collins.

Bookseller Taylor C. will lead this discussion of Continuing the Story: The Huger Games book club. If you’re a fan of the series, please join us.

Everyone is welcome. RSVP required.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where:The Ripped Bodice

Date:Monday the 3^rd

Time:7:15 pm – 8:30 pm

Address:3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323

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

Monday Night Fiction Workshop via Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center –OnlineZoomEvent

This free Monday Night Community Writing Workshop led byRaquel Bakeris a workshop in which participants are asked to bring copies of 2-3 pages of fiction to read, and to use for critique and discussion. Registration is required.

Raquel 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 Literary Arts Center – Online event

Date:Monday the 3^rd

Time:7:30 pm – 10 pm

If you need an open mic, beautiful people, tasty eats, dope inspiration, good libations, and good vibrations, we have you covered!

Join host Kuahmel Alyeeus KuahAllah and @djkevjam for poetry, Open Mic, rare grooves, cocktails, tasty bites.

Every 1st & 3rd Monday of the month.

Featured guest TBA.

NOTE: See site for tickets and details.

Where: LB Unified

Date: Monday the 3^rd

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/mic-influence-tickets-595266777957?aff=erelexpmlt

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

Let Francesca help you with all aspects of your writing!

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

Note: Please RSVP at site.

Where:Village Well Books & Coffee

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:10 am – 11 am

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

“The New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie returns with a thrilling story of Christie’s legendary rival Dorothy Sayers, the race to solve a murder, and the power of friendship among women. London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment. May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods.

Please contact Marta Wiggins at mwiggins@library.lacounty.gov for more information and the link to the Zoom Meeting.

Where:La Crescenta Library, LACL

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:11 am – 12 pm

Where:Donald Bruce Kaufman – Brentwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:1 pm

Address: 11820 San Vicente Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90049

Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town. But after Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer. It’s been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can’t remember anything about. But now the phenomenally huge hit true crime podcast Listen for the Lie and its host, Ben Owens, have decided to investigate Savvy’s murder. Lucy is forced to return to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend’s murder, even if she is the one who did it. The truth is out there, if we just listen.

Where:Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:2 pm – 3 pm

The Teens Read Classics Book Club is celebrating Women’s History Month in March. Join us this month as we discuss The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Read the book in your spare time, then join us on Tuesday, March 4th, for the discussion. Bring your thoughts, your questions, and a friend, as we meet in the YA area of the library. The more the merrier!

Teen volunteers may help set up, host, and clean up afterwards for service credit.

Where:San Dimas Library, LACL

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:4 pm – 5 pm

Address: 145 N Walnut Ave., San Dimas, CA 91773

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13012532

Women on Books Book Club:The Awakeningat West Hollywood Library, LACL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Please contact the library to borrow a print copy of the book. eBook and eAudiobook are available through hoopla digital (no wait) and Libby app/OverDrive.

Summary provided by the publisher:

Edna Pontellier is married, twenty-eight, and at a crossroads in her life. She is passionate and artistic but has no one who understands her deep yearnings. She jumps at the chance to spend a summer away from her husband and the heat of New Orleans at a small coastal retreat.

Enveloped by a small circle of friends, she begins to throw off the strictures of the 1890s bourgeoisie. Stepwise, Edna renounces her obligations, takes a lover, and is propelled on a course that frees, consumes, and eventually destroys her.

Where:West Hollywood Library, LACL

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:6 pm – 7 pm

Participants will discussEasy Beauty: A Memoirby authorChloé Cooper Jones.

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Memoir or Autobiography.

From Chloé Cooper Jones—Pulitzer Prize finalist, philosophy professor, Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant recipient—an “exquisite” (Oprah Daily) and groundbreaking memoir about disability, motherhood, and the search for a new way of seeing and being seen.

“I am in a bar in Brooklyn, listening to two men, my friends, discuss whether my life is worth living.”

So begins Chloé Cooper Jones’s bold, revealing account of moving through the world in a body that looks different than most. Jones learned early on to factor “pain calculations” into every plan, every situation. Born with a rare congenital condition called sacral agenesis which affects both her stature and gait, her pain is physical. But there is also the pain of being judged and pitied for her appearance, of being dismissed as “less than.” The way she has been seen—or not seen—has informed her lens on the world her entire life. She resisted this reality by excelling academically and retreating to “the neutral room in her mind” until it passed. But after unexpectedly becoming a mother (in violation of unspoken social taboos about the disabled body), something in her shifts, and Jones sets off on a journey across the globe, reclaiming the spaces she’d been denied, and denied herself.

From the bars and domestic spaces of her life in Brooklyn to sculpture gardens in Rome; from film festivals in Utah to a Beyoncé concert in Milan; from a tennis tournament in California to the Killing Fields of Phnom Penh, Jones weaves memory, observation, experience, and aesthetic philosophy to probe the myths underlying our standards of beauty and desirability and interrogates her own complicity in upholding those myths.

Chloé Cooper Jones is a philosophy professor, journalist, and the author of the memoir Easy Beauty, which was named a Best Book of 2022 by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Time, and others. She is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant recipient and, in 2020, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Where:Cellar Door Books

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:6 pm – 8 pm

Celebrating the launch of Expect Great Things! by Vanda Krefft who will be joined in-conversation by Dinah Lenney.

Reserve your spot at Eventbrite!

A fun and fascinating social history of the famed Katharine Gibbs School, which from the 1910s to the 1960s, trained women for executive secretary positions but surreptitiously was instilling the self-confidence and strategic know-how necessary for them to claim equality, power, and authority in the wider world.

Vanda Krefft has written about women’s issues and popular culture for leading national magazines, including Elle, Redbook, Woman’s Day, and Woman’s World, as well as newspapers worldwide through syndication. She is the author of The Man Who Made the Movies, the first in-depth biography of Twentieth Century Fox founder William Fox.

Dinah Lenney has played countless roles on stage and television, among them Murphy Brown’s Secretary Number Three, Eileen/Abraham on The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a nun with a gun on Sons of Anarchy, ER’s no-nonsense Nurse Shirley, Shakespeare’s Queen Gertrude (in Hamlet), and also his Lady Macbeth (of course).

Reserve your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where:Village Well Books & Coffee

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:6 pm – 7 pm

Celebrate Women’s History Month with the power of forbidden literature. Performed by VOX Femina, L.A.’s premier all-female chorus, this free live concert features passages from Banned Books set to music. Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Juno Dawson’s This Book is Gay!, and the classic Alice in Wonderland receive new life through musical adaptation. The concert will also feature a brand-new commission from composer Jennifer Lucy Cook inspired by Margaret Atwood’s electrifying novel The Handmaid’s Tale. You won’t want to miss this empowering vocal performance in Central Library’s Mark Taper Auditorium.

Where:Central Library, LAPL, Mark Taper Auditorium

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: 630 W. 5^th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071

How is it that reading and writing can at once isolate us and bring us closer to others? Blending personal narrative with literary criticism, Emily Hodgson Anderson considers what a life spent with books has taught her about loneliness and human connection. She delves into the unseen labor of women, authors, and mothers, and she argues that we can reimagine intimacy through books. Herself a book lover and writer, a teacher of literature, and a single mom, Anderson reflects on the loneliness, and the strength, that can come from living, writing, and parenting alone.

Shadow Work puts writers such as Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Laurence Sterne, and Shakespeare into unexpected conversations with authors of children’s literature and contemporary fiction, among them Roald Dahl, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Zadie Smith, and Lewis Carroll. Elegantly and poignantly written, this book examines what it means to revisit longtime literary companions and how literature can help us better understand what we show and hide about ourselves.

Emily Hodgson Anderson is professor of English and Dornsife College Dean of Undergraduate Education at the University of Southern California. She is the author of two books of literary criticism, and her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Air/Light, and LitHub. She lives in Los Angeles with her two young boys and one old dog.

Grace Franklin is a Ph.D. candidate in English at the University of Southern California. She is the assistant editor of a literary journal, and her essays are forthcoming in Victorian Studies, Gaslighting: Genealogy of an Injustice, and Energized: 101 Words for a New Politics of Energy. She lives in Silver Lake with her family.

Where:Diesel, A Booksore

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website:https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Emily-Hodsgon-Anderson-Author-signing

Conchas y Café Bilingual Writing Zine Workshopvia DSTL Arts –OnlineEvent

Our Conchas y Café bilingual community writing workshop series is a 15-week virtual course that explores skills in poetry and other forms of creative writing. Writers of all skill levels are welcome to join.

The SPRING 2025 SEMESTER will culminate with the publishing of Conchas y Café Zine; Vol. 10, Issue 2.

The theme we will be exploring during this series and zine is the concept: “TBD.”

Days and Times: Tuesdays (weekly); 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

To enroll in our series, visit:https://classroom.google.com/

Nuestra serie de clases bilingües comunitarias de escritura ‘Conchas y Café’ es un curso virtual de 15 semanas que explora técnicas poéticas y otras formas de escritura creativa. Autores de todo nivel técnico son bienvenidos a participar.

Where:DSTL Arts

Date:Tuesday the 4^th(through May 6, 2025)

Time:6:30 pm – 8 pm

Address:Online Event

Website:https://www.dstlarts.org/calendar

Creativity Book Club: Imaginableat Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Do you think of yourself as creative, or wish that you were? Do you get inspired by a book of reflections, or do you prefer an actual workbook with tasks and prompts? Do you wish you had more people to talk with about painting, poetry or pottery?

Here is the time and the place; you just need to be here with us. Be a part of the start – and let 2025 be your most creatively satisfying year yet!

In Imaginable, Jane McGonigal draws on the latest scientific research in psychology and neuroscience to show us how to train our minds to think the unthinkable and imagine the unimaginable. She invites us to play with the provocative thought experiments and future simulations she’s designed exclusively for this book, with the goal to:

Build our collective imagination so that we can dive into the future and envision, in surprising detail, what our lives will look like ten years from now

Develop the courage and vision to solve problems creatively Take actions and make decisions that will help shape the future we desire

Access “urgent optimism,” an unstoppable force within each of us that activates our sense of agency

Imaginable teaches us to be fearless, resilient, and bold in realizing a world with possibilities we cannot yet imagine—until reading this transformative, inspiring, and necessary book.

Reserve your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where:Village Well Books & Coffee

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events

Open Mic Readings Every Tuesday at the Aftermath Bar, Sherman Oaks – In-Person Event

CALLING ALL WRITERS! Every Tuesday we’ll be having Open Mic Readings open to the public! Read your poems, fiction, and spoken word at our open mic reading EVERY TUESDAY NIGHT from 7 pm – 10 pm!

Read your poetry, fiction, spoken word, or lyrics.

Free event. 21+

Note: Please RSVP at site.

Where:The Aftermath Bar

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:7 pm – 10 pm

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

Website:https://www.instagram.com

Sonya Walger, with Tosh Berman, & Lion at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Sonya Walger, in conversation withTosh Berman,will discuss her book,Lion.

An engrossing work of autobiographical fiction about the relationship between an actress daughter and her larger-than-life father—the astonishingly assured debut novel of Sonya Walger, actress on Lost, For All Mankind, and more.

Lion is about an unlikely parent, more legend than presence in his daughter’s life. He is a charismatic, dashing bon-vivant, a polo player, race car driver, cocaine addict, ex-con, pilot, and sky diver. Born in the aftershocks of Argentina’s greatest earthquake, he is like a minor god who comes down to earth in a grand manner, falling in all the ways there are to fall.

“It is hard to compete with adrenalin when you are a child,” his daughter writes, now a mother herself to young children whose settled upbringing prompts her to consider her unconventional youth and the source of its chaos, her, by turns, loving, maddening, and magnetic father.

Lion is a double portrait told in a perpetual present tense that moves back and forth between present-day Los Angeles, where the narrator lives with her family and works as an actress, and the past of her peripatetic childhood, spent shuttling between her mother in England, boarding school, and her father and his successive wives in Buenos Aires and Lima.

Sonya Walger’s stunning autobiographical debut is an emotionally acute palimpsest of a novel about a father and daughter, in which the drama and incident, love and tragedy that make up his life make up hers as well. The legend of his life and her distinctive and imaginatively charged telling of it make for an engrossing and unforgettable family saga.

Where:Book Soup

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/sonya-walger

Book Launch:Stuart Gibbs &Spy Ski School Graphic Novel at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Kids Event

Come in your best ski bum outfit to celebrate the new Spy Ski School the Graphic Novel with New York Times bestselling author Stuart Gibbs! Stuart will have a short presentation, answer questions from the audience and then sign books. Best for spies ages 8+.

*Please note*: Fans MUST have purchased a copy of Spy Ski School the Graphic Novel from Once Upon A Time in order to be in the signing line.

Masks are recommended for our events. If you can’t make it to the event, you can order signed books in advance below.

Order Signed Books

Where:Once Upon a Time

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:7 pm

Address:2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website:https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/spy-ski-school-graphic-novel

Other Worlds Book Club:We Are Dreams in the Eternal Machine at pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event

Other Worlds Book Club meets monthly, generally on the first Tuesday of each month at 7:00 pm. A new-ish pages bookclub exploring the nooks and crannies of speculative fiction: fantasy, science fiction, alternative history, horror, and their intersections.

Next Meeting: Tuesday, March 4th at 7:00 pm (In-Person meeting)

Book: We Are Dreams in the Eternal Machine by Deni Ellis Béchard.

A haunting novel exploring artificial intelligence and the meaning of human existence.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where:pages: a bookstore

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:7 pm – 8 pm

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

Join us for a special night of the Legendborn Cycle trivia, signed book giveaways and refreshments.

Everyone is welcome. RSVP required.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where:The Ripped Bodice

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:7 pm – 9 pm

Address:3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323

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

At Skylight: Sanam Mahloudji, with Edan Lepucki, &The Persians at Skylight – In-Person Event

An irreverent debut novel about a family confronting a past that is both keeping them together and preventing them from breaking free.

Meet the Valiat family. In Iran, they were somebodies. In America, they’re nobodies.

First there is Elizabeth, the regal matriarch with the famously large nose who stayed in Tehran during the revolution. She lives in a shabby apartment, paranoid and alone. Except when she is visited by Niaz, her Islamic-law-breaking granddaughter who takes her debauchery with a side of purpose, and yet somehow manages to survive. Elizabeth’s daughters left for America in 1979: Shirin, a charismatic yet outrageous event planner in Houston who considers herself the family’s future, and Seema, a dreamy idealist-turned-housewife languishing in the chaparral-filled hills of Los Angeles. And then there’s the other granddaughter Bita, the self-righteous but lost law student spending her days in New York City eating pancakes and quietly giving away her belongings.

When an annual vacation in Aspen goes wildly awry and Shirin ends up being bailed out of jail by Bita, the family’s brittle status quo is cracked open. Shirin embarks upon a grand but half-baked quest to restore the family name. But what does that even mean in a country where the Valiats never mattered? Will they ever realize that life is more than just an old story?

These are five women who are pulled apart and brought together by revolution. Here is their past, present, and future. By turns satirical and philosophical, traveling from the 1940s Iran into a splintered 2000s, The Persians is a mordantly funny, heartbreakingly sad, and profoundly searching portrait of a family in crisis at the turn of the century, an American family saga reinvented.

Sanam Mahloudji was born in Tehran and left during the Islamic Revolution. She is the recipient of the Pushcart Prize and was nominated for a PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. Her writing has appeared in McSweeney’s, The Idaho Review, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. Mahloudji was raised in Los Angeles and now lives in London with her husband and two children. The Persians is her debut novel.

Edan Lepucki is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels California and Woman No. 17, as well as the editor of Mothers Before: Stories and Portraits of Our Mothers as We Never Saw Them. Her nonfiction has been published in The New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Esquire Magazine, and The Cut, among other publications. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.

Where:Skylight

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:7 pm

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

Website:https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-sanam-mahloudji-presents-persians-w-edan-lepucki

Nicole Maggi, withGretchen McNeil,& A Murder in Zionat Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Nicole Maggi,in conversation withGretchen McNeil,will discuss her book A Murder in Zion.

When the body of a childhood friend turns up in the Narrows of Zion National Park, Emmeline Helliwell, a special agent with the National Park Service, is called in to investigate. As bodies start to pile up, Emme soon realizes that the breathtaking beauty of Zion National Park may hide sordid secrets in its depths.

NOTE:See site for details.

Where:Vroman’s

Date:Tuesday the 4^th

Time:7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-04/nicole-maggi-conversation-gretchen-mcneil-discusses-signs-murder-zion

The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic: Rick Lupert & Guest –OnlineZoomEvent

No Reading – National Lupert Holiday

Where:Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event

Date:Tuesday, the 4^th

Time:7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

Address:Online event (see site)

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

Da Poetry Lounge Open Mic Night at Greenway Court –In-PersonEvent (NOTE NEW MARCH LOCATION)

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

NOTE:DPL’s home, The Greenway Court Theatre is currently being renovated and they will return their next month.

$10 donation. Do NOT line up prior to 7:30 pm Free parking adjacent to the theater.

Masks are encouraged. All ages are welcome.

Join us at new location for March 4^th March 11th, March 18^th & March 25^th!

Where:Ora Urban Cafe

Date:Tuesday, the 4^th

Time:9 pm – 11 pm

Address:4331 Degnan Blvd., Leimert Park, Los Angeles, CA 90008

Website:https://www.instagram.com/p/ChLUBSRPCFb/ orhttps://www.dapoetrylounge.com/events/

Book Club Book Party:Dinners with Ruthat San Dimas Senior Center, with LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Dinners with Ruth, by Nina Totenberg.

Celebrated NPR correspondent Nina Totenberg delivers an extraordinary memoir of her personal successes, struggles, and life-affirming relationships, including her remarkable friendship of nearly fifty years with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

At the story’s heart is one special relationship: Ruth and Nina saw each other not only through personal joys, but also illness, loss, and widowhood.

Where:San Dimas Senior Center

Date:Wednesday the 5^th

Time:10:30 am

Address: 201 E. Bonita Ave., San Dimas, CA 91773

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12375506

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

Join us for our monthly book club! This month we’ll be discussingThe WomenbyKristin Hannah. Copies of the book will be available at the customer service desk. This program is for adults.

Where:Westlake Village Library, LACL

Date:Wednesday the 5^th

Time:12 pm – 1 pm

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12714976

Chatsworth Book Club:The House on Mango Streetat Chatsworth Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Join us to discuss the Big Read novelThe House on Mango StreetbySandra Cisneros. is a coming-of-age novel about a young girl, Esperanza, growing up in Chicago, and inventing for herself who and what she will become.

RSVP:

If you are interested in joining us by Zoom, please email sstamm@lapl.org.

Where:Chatsworth Branch Library, LAPL

Date:Wednesday the 4^th

Time:1:30 pm

Address: 21052 Devonshire St., Chatsworth, CA 91311

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/chatsworth-book-club-0

Our Hidden Histories: Book Talk with Désirée Zamorano & Dispossessed at CSU Northridge Library – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Join us for a book talk with the author Désirée Zamorano to discuss the author’s new novel, Dispossessed, which traces the life of Manuel, a boy who is separated from his parents during the mass expulsion of Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals in Los Angeles during the 1930s.

The author will discuss how her background in education inspired her to uplift hidden histories within her novel. The aim of the event will be to explore how Zamorano’s novel lies within the intersection of Ethnic Studies and the field of Education.

Born and raised in Los Angeles Désirée Zamorano is the author of the highly acclaimed literary novel, The Amado Women. Her novel Human Cargo was Latinidad’ s mystery pick of the year. She is a Pushcart prize nominee and award-winning short story writer. Her work is often an exploration of issues of invisibility, injustice, or inequity. A selection of her writing can be found in Catapult, Cultural Weekly, The Kenyon Review Online, and Akashic’ s South Central Noir. She teaches linguistic and cultural diversity at Cal State Long Beach.

NOTE: See site for details. Join us in person and via Zoom. Register here for the zoom link: https://library.csun.edu/events/hidden-histories

Where:CSUN University Library

Date:Wednesday, the 5^th

Time:1 pm – 2:30 pm

Address:18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, CA 91330

Website: https://www.instagram.com/ orhttps://library.csun.edu/events/hidden-histories

Poets Café via KPFK 90.7 FM – Live On-Air Event

Poets Café celebrates Poetry. This program is a weekly half-hour literary arts discussion and reading program featuring guest authors and their works.

Poetry From Around the World is a segment of this series offered monthly on the 2^ndMonday of the month on KPFK Los Angeles 90.7 FM.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where:KPFK 90.7 FM

Date:Wednesday, the 5^th

Time:2 pm – 2:30 pm

Address:On-air Event (live)

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

Mystery Book Club:Beautiful Uglyat Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants will be discussingBeautiful UglybyAlice Feeney. Copies of the book will be available at the customer service desk. This program is for adults.

Where:Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date:Wednesday the 5^th

Time:2 pm – 3 pm

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

Although conceived as a children’s story, The Little Prince is a classic tale of equal appeal to adults. On one level it is the story of an airman’s discovery, in the desert, of a small boy from another planet—the Little Prince of the title—and his stories of intergalactic travel, while on the other hand it is a thought-provoking allegory of the human condition.

Where:East Los Angeles Library, LACL

Date:Wednesday the 5^th

Time:4 pm – 5 pm

Address: 4837 E. 3rd St., Los Angeles, CA 90022

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12927925

Social Justice Book Club:Going Placesat Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL –OnlineFamily Event

Check out the book of the month at your local library and bring your thoughts and feelings to the conversation. Books can transform the way we look at the world. Join children’s librarians from the Library to discuss kid-friendly books related to topics of social justice. This is an all-ages book club for the whole family.

We will be reading the following book:

Feb. 5: Going Places: Victor Hugo Green and His Glorious Book by Tonya Bolden.

In the vein of Hidden Figures comes a nonfiction picture book about the Green Book, a travel guide by Victor Hugo Green, a Black postal worker from Harlem, made to help African Americans stay safe while traveling during segregation.

RSVP:

Please register here and for more information, email cquinn@lapl.org.

Where:Eagle Rock Branch Library, LAPL

Date:Wednesday the 5^th

Time:4 pm – 5 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

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

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12889143

Creative Writing Workshop With Tony DuShaneat Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join usfor a free writer’s workshop presented by UCLA instructor Tony DuShane, screenwriter of the film Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk, based on his novel of the same name. This workshop is open to adults only.

Where:Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL

Date:Wednesday the 5^th

Time:6 pm

Address: 1874 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/creative-writing-workshop-tony-dushane-6

Be the Change: Social Justice Writing Workshop with James Coats – Online Event

Be the Change, a Social Justice Writing Workshop, is held every 1^st Wednesday of the month and led by poet and author James Coats.

James Coats was born in Los Angeles and raised in Southern California. He has an intense feeling for all things creative. He strives to capture authentic self-expression through his work. James’ creative bend tends toward photography, painting, and writing. He is the author or several poetry collections including Midnight & Mad Dreams (World Stage Press, 2022).

Workshop is free: name your own price.

NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.

Where: Online Event

Date: Wednesday the 5^th

Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event Zoom ID: 826 5843 0669 Password: justice

Website: N/A

History Book Club: Destiny of the Republic at Cellar Door Bookstore – In-Person Event

Participants will discuss Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, by author Candice Millard.

The extraordinary account of James Garfield’s rise from poverty to the American presidency, and the dramatic history of his assassination and legacy, from the bestselling author of The River of Doubt.

James Abram Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, a renowned congressman, and a reluctant presidential candidate who took on the nation’s corrupt political establishment.

But four months after Garfield’s inauguration in 1881, he was shot in the back by a deranged office-seeker named Charles Guiteau. Garfield survived the attack, but become the object of bitter, behind-the-scenes struggles for power—over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care.

Candice Millard, the New York Times-bestselling author of The River of Doubt, is a former editor and contributing writer at National Geographic magazine. She lives in Kansas City with her husband and children.

Where:Cellar Door Books

Date:Wednesday the 5^th

Time:6 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/history-book-club-destiny-republic-tale-madness-medicine-and-murder-president-0

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 Cardenasis the founder of the Los Angeles Poet Society.

Guests: TBA

This program is offered weekly on radio in Los Angeles 101.5 FM.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where:101.5 FM

Date:Wednesday the 5^th

Time:6 pm – 8 pm

Address:On-air Event (live at 101.5 FM)

Website:https://www.lapoetsociety.org/events

Mystery Book Club: Beautiful Uglyat Agoura Hills Library, LACL – In-Person Event

Participants meet virtually to discuss Alice Feeney’s Beautiful Ugly.

To attend this meeting virtually, contact Nina Hull at 818-889-2278 or email nhull@library.lacounty.gov

Where:Agoura Hills Library, LACL

Date:Wednesday the 5^th

Time:6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address: Online Event (see site)

Croatia, 1351. Daring knight Gerard Fox and his adventurous wife Willa, fresh from a dangerous quest across Italy and Greece, soon find themselves embroiled in a new intrigue as they sail toward the walled city of Dubrovnik. Having inadvertently hindered a rescue mission, Fox and Willa make amends by helping a desperate Croatian couple forced into a terrible dilemma: either they betray their hometown to a treacherous nobleman and the brutal warlord he serves, or their abducted child will be murdered. A century-old prophecy and a lost codex written by fabled explorer Marco Polo are key to stopping the warlord’s conquest, which could spark a devastating war along the entire Adriatic coast. Fox and Willa race against time to devise a plan for saving a child, a town, and a country–knowing it could cost them everything if they fail.

Beth Morrison is Senior Curator of Manuscripts at the J. Paul Getty Museum. She has curated major exhibitions including “Imagining the Past in France, 1250-1500”, and ‘Book of Beasts: The Bestiary in the Medieval World’. She has a PhD in the History of Art from Cornell University.

Boyd Morrison is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of fifteen thrillers, including six with Clive Cussler. His first novel, The Ark, was an Indie Next Notable pick and was translated into over a dozen languages. He has a PhD in industrial engineering from Virginia Tech.

Note: Please RSVP at site.

Where:Diesel, A Bookstore

Date:Wednesday the 5^th

Time:6:30 pm

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

Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Beth-Morrison-Boyd-Morrison-Author-signing

Sophie Stava, with Amy Tintera,&Count My Liesat pages: a bookstore – In-Person Event

Join us to welcome South Bay native Sophie Stava for the launch event celebrating publication of her debut novel, Count My Lies.

Sophie will be in conversation with Amy Tintera, New York Times Bestselling and Good Morning America Book Club author of Listen for the Lie.

No lie, their conversation promises to be riveting! Pre-order your signed copy of Count My Lies from pages. We ship anywhere in the US. This is a free event but RSVPs are appreciated. We hope you will consider purchasing a copy of the book in support of the authors and pages, an independent bookstore.

A read-in-one-night suspense thriller narrated by a compulsive liar whose little white lies allow her to enter into the life and comfort of a wealthy married couple who are harboring much darker secrets themselves.

Sophie Stava received her BA in English literature from UC Santa Barbara. She currently resides in Southern California with her family. COUNT MY LIES is her debut novel.

Amy Tintera is the New York Times bestselling author of several series for young adults. She earned degrees in journalism and film and worked in Hollywood before becoming an author. Raised in Austin, Texas, she frequently sets her novels in the Lone Star State, but she now lives in Los Angeles, where there’s far less humidity but not nearly enough Tex-Mex. Listen for the Lie is her adult debut.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, cost, and details.

Where:pages: a bookstore

Date:Wednesday the 5^th

Time:6:30 pm – 7:30 pm

Address:1112 Manhattan Ave., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

A debut memoir and (sort of) Cinderella story about a woman who’d been told she was “too old” to create magic who flew to rural China, edited a film without speaking a word of Mandarin, and discovered her own power.

Lisa Cheek loved editing TV commercials—almost as much as she loved her dog, Ron Howard. Then, she “aged out” of advertising, at 45. After being let go, Lisa got a call—at 2:45 AM—from a director who, like everyone in Hollywood, had a film he wanted to make: the original Cinderella story. Now, his dream could come true—If Lisa granted his wish.

In Sit, Cinderella, Sit, the author shares her adventures in editing a film made on location in China—along the Tibetan border—where Mandarin was the only language spoken by everyone but her. Stuck in a house with fourteen men she couldn’t understand, literally, she yearned for conversation and coffee.

But there were moments of wonder and laughter. Lisa forged a bond with her translator and a woman named Sunny. She rescued one dog, and then another. “Everyone speaks Cinderella,” the director had assured her. Maybe he was right.

Told with humor and heart through a fairy tale lens, with flashbacks into the author’s not-always-happy childhood, Sit, Cinderella, Sit is a story about what can happen when you take a leap of faith, look and hear beyond people’s differences, and dare to believe in yourself.

Where:Book Soup

Date:Wednesday the 5^th

Time:7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event

RECESS Open Mic is at SIPA HQ, Palms Up Academy – In-Person Event

RECESS Open Mic is at SIPA HQ on Wednesdays.

This dynamic open mic is the most accessible public program in the Palms Up Academy curriculum and manifests their mission statement in a physical (and digital) space.

Join them at the intersection of Historic Filipino town & The World: Search to Involve Pilipino Americans.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, cost, guidelines, and details.

Where:SIPA HQ

Date:Wednesday, the 5^th

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

A dynamic portrait of one queer, Black boy’s experience in 1970s Cincinnati.

Sixteen-year-old Cliffy Douglas’s life is leveling up. An academic superstar on an accelerated path, he’s about to put high school behind him for college on the West Coast. His mentally ill father seems committed to seeking help for both his bipolar disorder and the PTSD brought back from the war in Vietnam. Cliffy even has a boyfriend—a summer romance that just might be the real thing.

But Cliffy’s life is flung into dangerous limbo after a vicious personal assault leaves him hospitalized, and with a terrible secret that threatens to ruin his escape from his claustrophobic family into a larger, more open world. As he recovers from his brutal attack, Cliffy must gather the complicated courage to face his assailant, demand justice, and fight off an encroaching despair that threatens his future.

With Days Running, novelist Shawn Stewart Ruff has created yet another dynamic portrait of one queer, Black boy’s experience in 1970s Cincinnati—chaotic family ties, the friction of shame and self-preservation, devastating violence, unexpected allies, and the desperate desire to break free.

Shawn Stewart Ruff is the author of three novels, including Finlater, 2008 winner of a Lambda Literary Award for Debut Fiction and a finalist for the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award. He is also the editor of the landmark Go the Way Your Blood Beats: An Anthology of Lesbian and Gay Fiction by African American Writers (1996).

Larry Duplechan’s novels include Blackbird (considered the first modern Black “coming-out” novel) and the Lambda Literary Award-winning Got ‘til it’s Gone. His hobbies include singing, playing the ukulele, reading show business biographies, and pursuing his ongoing quest to forestall the physical aging process and build truly outstanding pecs. He lives in Los Angeles with his husband and a 17-pound Chartreux cat named Mr. Blue

Where:Skylight

Date:Wednesday the 5^th

Time:7 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-shawn-stewart-ruff-presents-days-running-w-larry-depluchan

Margaret Chandra Kerrison, with Todd Martens, &The Art of Immersive Storytellingat Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Level up your storytelling with award-winning experience designer, world builder, and former Disney Imagineer.

Immersive experiences and interactive exhibits are popping up all over the world, telling stories that engage our imaginations and sense of play like never before.

Exploring the parallels between video games and the world’s most exciting, innovative spaces, this sequel to the groundbreaking Immersive Storytelling for Real and Imagined Worlds explains how the same techniques that pull players into games for hours at a time can be employed to draw participants into immersive experiences. Join Margaret Kerrison as she guides our next generation of immersive storytellers on a deep dive into the creative possibilities of this new realm of storytelling.

Todd Martens is a features columnist at the Los Angeles Times who writes about theme parks and West Coast Experiences, among other topics. Martens joined the Los Angeles Times in 2007 and has covered a mix of interactive entertainment as its game critic and pop music as a reporter and editor.

NOTE:See site for details.

Where:Vroman’s

Date:Wednesday the 5^th

Time:7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-05/margaret-chandra-kerrison-conversation-todd-martens-discusses-art-immersive

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 —TBA;
• 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 5^th

Time:7:30 pm – 10 pm

Address:4321 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008

Website:https://www.instagram.com orhttps://www.facebook.com

Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop at Beyond Baroque –OnlineEvent

The West Coast’s longest-running free poetry workshop is offered by Beyond Baroque on Zoom and welcomes new and seasoned poets to share their work and provide feedback. Please be prepared to share one poem. This workshop will be hosted via the Zoom video-conferencing platform. Please be prepared to share one poem.

Please spend some time before the workshop learning how to share documents via Zoom. It will keep the session moving if you’re able to make your poem viewable quickly and easily. An instructive video is available at the site.

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 Literary Arts Center

Date:Wednesday, the 5^th

Time:8 pm – 10 pm

Address:Online event (see site)

Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org

Poetry Nights with East Los Soul at East Los Angeles Rising Youth Club –In-PersonEvent

East Los Soul presents Poetry Nights every Wednesday from 8 pm – 9:45 pm at East L.A. Rising Youth Club. Poetry starts at 8:15 pm.

Every 2^ndWednesday will be a poetry contest with a $200 prize for the poet winner, via unanimous vote.

Every 4^thWednesday will be an art contest with a $200 prize for the artist winner, via unanimous vote.

$2 entrance fee

Where:East Los Angeles Rising Youth Club

Date:Wednesday, the 5^th

Time:8 pm – 9:45 pm

Address:324 N. McDonnell Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90022

Website:https://www.bgcela.org/

Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg and Guest tba at The Ugly Mug –In-PersonEvent

HostBen Triggand Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at the Ugly Mug on Wednesday Nights and the feature isRaundi Moore-Kondo.

Raundi Moore-Kondo is a writer, spoken word performer, small press publisher, full-time writing coach, and founder of For The Love Of Words Creative Writing Collective. She is the editor of five poetry anthologies, author of two full-length poetry collections. Let The Ends Spill over Your Lips and Death of a Snowman, and a Pushcart Prize Nominee.

$4 cover fee, cash only

NOTE: See site for further details.

Where:The Ugly Mug, Orange

Date:Wednesday, the 5^th

Time:8 pm – 10 pm

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

Do you want to write professionally or for personal satisfaction and healing but aren’t sure where to start and need some inspiring tips and support? Do you have a project that needs revision? Are you feeling stuck creatively? Join acclaimed author and writing instructor Francesca Lia Block for a discussion of her 12 Questions followed by free writing and Q&A. Come be a part of the supportive Lit Angels writing community and consider writing a story to share at our Valentine’s event on 2/7 for possible submission in Lit Angels Journal.

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

About Lit Angels Writing Studio:

There are so many fitness classes available for the body, but what are you doing to exercise your creative mind?

Lit Angels offers classes that provide just that—a fun and freeing way to work out the creative muscles and eliminate the stumbling blocks that might be holding you back, not only in your writing, art, or performance projects, but in all areas of your life—uplifting and refreshing your mind and soul, improving relationships, work, and your outlook on the future. Taught by top-level working professionals, Lit Angels classes cultivate community and connection, something we all desperately need in these challenging times.

Come make some magic at the Village Well! All genres and levels are welcome!

Reserve your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where:Village Well Books & Coffee

Date:Thursday the 6^th

Time:10 am – 11 am

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/all-events

Big Read Book Club (ESL/ELL-Low Intermediate) With Leah:The House on Mango Streetat Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Participants will discussThe House on Mango Street,by authorSandra Cisneros.

Are you an English language learner and interested in practicing your reading? This book club is for ESL/ELL adults who want to work on vocabulary, grammar, and reading skills. Read selections fromThe House on Mango StreetbySandra Cisnerosin class with other learners. Books will be provided. For more information, please call 213-228-7037 ext. 0 or emailsingleton@lapl.org.

Where:Central Library, LAPL, Singleton Adult Literacy Center

Date:Thursday the 6^th

Time:1 pm – 2:20 pm

Address:630 W. 5^thSt., Los Angeles, CA 90071

Website:https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/big-read-book-club-house-mango-street-0

Book Discussion:The House on Mango Streetat John Muir Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event

Join us to discuss the Big Read Book of 2025, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, with a video presentation and a Mexican salsa tasting.

Where:John Muir Branch Library, LAPL

Date:Thursday the 6^th

Time:4 pm

Address:1005 W. 64^th St., Los Angeles, CA 90044

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/house-mango-street-discussion-and-salsa-tasting

Open Mic Nightat Anaheim Central Library – In-Person Event

The Anaheim Library Open Mic Night is held every first Thursday of the month.

Open to performers and spectators of all ages. Poets, singers, songwriters, storytellers, dancers, and listeners are welcome. The program will include a featured reading by a published poet or musician. A sign-up sheet will be provided at the event for performers to register to participate. Each performer will be allotted 4-6 minutes, depending on the number of sign-ups. Visit Anaheim.net/APLADA or call 714-765-1700 at least 72 hours in advance if ADA accommodations are needed.

Where:Anaheim Central Library, Central Multipurpose Room

Date:Thursday the 6^th

Time:5 pm – 6:45 pm (Sign-ups at 4:45 pm)

Address:500 W. Broadway, Anaheim, CA 92805

Thursday, March 6^th:

6:00 – 8:00 Art + Poetry FREE

Select artist studios will be open, featuring poetry in response to their artwork, including performances and a festival welcoming.

NOTE:Tickets and schedule available at studiochannekislands.org

Where:Studio Channel Islands Art Center

Date:Thursday, the6^th(Day 1 0f 4)

Time:6 pm–8 pm

Address: 2222 Ventura Blvd., Camarillo, CA 93010

Website: https://www.instagram.com/vcpoetryfestival/ or https://events.humanitix.com/ventura-county-poetry-festival?c=web

Book Launch: Space Piracy: Crisis in Orbit at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

Join us for the book launch of Space Piracy: Preparing for a Criminal Crisis in Orbit!

Authors Marc Feldman and Hugh Taylor will walk us through a speculative future that explains the practical impacts of attacks against software, data, networks, and hardware as governments increasingly rely on space to maintain geopolitical standing. Don’t miss the launch for the book that Former Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Brrett calls “essential reading for anyone committed to ensuring that space remains available to advance peace, freedom, and civilization.”

The authors blend their own deep knowledge of the topic with interviews with subject matter experts to offer a holistic understanding of criminality in space and help you broaden your horizons beyond your own area of specialization. You’ll learn about how corruption, crime, piracy, and war can all rear their heads in the final frontier.

Marc Feldman is Managing Partner at Eonia Capital, an aerospace and defense-based venture capital fund. He has led teams across a variety of industries, including space, life sciences, telecommunications, and more.

Hugh Taylor is Executive Editor of The Journal of Cyber Policy. He is a Certified Information Security Manager (CSIM) who has worked in cybersecurity and enterprise technology for over twenty years.

Reserve your tickets on EVENTBRITE!

Where:Village Well Books & Coffee

Date:Thursday the 6^th

Time:6:30 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/1919220250306

Celebrating BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS by Deja Vu Prem, with Dr. Elaine Villanueva Bernal, at Book Soup – In-Person Event

Bel Canto Books is delighted to present a conversation with author Deja Vu Prem and Dr. Elaine Vuillanueva Bernal at KUBO LB.

Deja Vu Prem, author of BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS: AN IMMIGRANT’S INSPIRING JOURNEY OF HEALING AND LEARNING TO DANCE WITH THE UNIVERSE, will be in conversation with Dr. Elaine Villanueva Bernal.

Deja’s journey as an immigrant is a testament to the human spirit, filled with challenges, healing, and learning to trust the universe’s flow. Her work as a filmmaker, much like her memoir, is a celebration of diversity, exploring themes of identity, belonging, and personal transformation. Through her visual storytelling, she shares a multitude of perspectives and human stories, enlightening readers with the richness of the human experience.

Deja’s memoir provides readers with a profound glimpse into her life’s journey, weaving together healing lessons and universal themes of self-discovery. Besides her work as a writer and filmmaker, she finds joy in dancing, meditation, and connecting with nature—practices that fuel her creativity and keep her grounded. Through her storytelling, Deja dedicates herself to uplifting immigrant voices and celebrating the resilience of the human spirit.

Dr. Elaine Villanueva Bernal (Pronouns: They/Them) is a Full Time Lecturer for the CSULB Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and has served well over 7,000 students over the last 18 years. They currently oversee student outreach, engagement, and professional development programming for the Mentored Excellence Toward Research and Industry Careers. Dr. Bernal currently serves as a Faculty Fellow for CSULB College Corps to engage college students in meaningful internship opportunities that build leadership skills, civic responsibility, and self-confidence; help low-income students from diverse backgrounds graduate college with less debt; and support the work of community-based organizations as they build more equitable communities and address societal challenges related to climate change and environmental justice, food insecurity and K-12 education.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where:Bel Canto KUBO LB

Date:Thursday the 6^th

Time:7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celebrating-beyond-the-mountains-by-deja-vu-prem-tickets-1144570714819?aff=oddtdtcreator

Thomas Kohnstamm, with Tod Goldberg, &Supersonic at Book Soup – In-Person Event

When PTA president Sami Hasegawa-Stalworth petitions to rename a Seattle elementary school after her late grandmother, she ignites a battle over the school’s future and the history of its surrounding neighborhood. Supersonic launches readers into a kaleidoscopic tale of the generations of interrelated families who breathed life into that small, hilltop community.

The story cuts in time from the arrival of white settlers’ ships to the last indigenous landowner fighting to hold on to scraps of his ancestral home and back to the school’s PTA auction. It interweaves an opioid-addicted nineteenth-century con man-cum-civic booster, a disgraced Navy seaman building an airplane that travels faster than sound, a stay-at-home dad hustling to open the city’s first legal weed shop and Sami’s grandmother, a survivor of Japanese American incarceration during World War II, who founded the school’s once-celebrated music program.

The novel traces their false starts, triumphs, and heartbreaks through the booms and busts of the Yukon gold rush, the jet age, Big Tech, and beyond. By exploring the converging and often clashing personalities that make up the dynamic soul of a place, Supersonic illuminates themes of identity, displacement, destruction, and reinvention that give rise to all great American cities.

NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.

Where:Book Soup

Date:Thursday the 6^th

Time:7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/thomas-kohnstamm

At Skylight: Ada Calhoun, with Nicola Twilley & CRUSH at Skylight – In-Person Event

Ada Calhoun, in conversation with Nicola Twilley,will discussCrush: A Novel.

When a husband asks his wife to consider what might be missing from their marriage, what follows surprises them both—sex, heartbreak and heart rekindling, and a rediscovered sense of all that is possible

She’s happy and settled and productive and content in her full life—a child, a career, an admirable marriage, deep friendships, happy parents, and a spouse she still loves. But when her husband urges her to address what the narrow labels of “husband” and “wife” force them to edit out of their lives, the very best kind of hell breaks loose.

Using the author’s personal experiences as a jumping-off point, Crush is about the danger and liberation of chasing desire, the havoc it can wreak, and most of all the clear sense of self one finds when the storm passes. Destined to become a classic novel of marriage, and tackling the big questions being asked about partnership in postpandemic relationships, Crush is a sharp, funny, seductive, and revelatory novel about holding on to everything it’s possible to love—friends, children, parents, passion, lovers, husbands, all of the world’s good books, and most of all one’s own deep sense of purpose.

Ada Calhoun is the author of Also a Poet, named one of the best books of 2022 by The New York Times, NPR, and The Washington Post, longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, and featured on the Today show and PBS NewsHour. Her other books include the New York Times bestsellers St. Marks Is Dead and Why We Can’t Sleep. Crush is her first novel.

Nicola Twilley* is author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves (Penguin Press, June 2024), and co-host of the award-winning Gastropod podcast, which looks at food through the lens of history and science, and which is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with Eater. Her first book, Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine, was co-authored with Geoff Manaugh and was named one of the best books of 2021 by Time Magazine, NPR, the Guardian, and the Financial Times. She is a contributing writer at The New Yorker and the author of Edible Geography. She lives in Los Angeles.

Where:Skylight

Date:Thursday the 6^th

Time:7 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-ada-calhoun-presents-crush-w-nicola-twilley

Tonalli Thursdays Open Mic via Los Angeles Poet Society – Online Zoom Event

L.A. Poet Society hosts Tonalli Thursdays Open Mic and Featured Readers every 1st Thursday of the month via Zoom.

Features TBA.

NOTE: See site for details.

Where: Los Angeles Poet Society

Date: Thursday the 6^th

Time: 7 pm – 9 pm

Address: Online Zoom Event: ZOOM: 897 1039 1895

Website: https://www.instagram.com

Tim Hernandez &They Call You Backat Vroman’s – In-Person Event

Tim Hernandezwill discuss and sign his memoir They Call You Back.

A haunting, an obsession, a calling: Tim Z. Hernandez has been searching for people his whole life. Now, in this highly anticipated memoir, he takes us along on an investigative odyssey through personal and collective history to uncover the surprising conjunctions that bind our stories together.

Hernandez’s mission to find the families of the twenty-eight Mexicans who were killed in the 1948 plane wreck at Los Gatos Canyon formed the basis for his acclaimed documentary novel All They Will Call You, which the San Francisco Chronicle dubbed “a stunning piece of investigative journalism,” and the New York Times hailed as “painstaking detective work by a writer who is the descendant of farmworkers.”

In this riveting new work, Hernandez continues his search for the plane crash victims while also turning the lens on himself and his ancestral past, revealing the tumultuous and deeply intimate experiences that have fueled his investigations—a lifelong journey haunted by memory, addiction, generational trauma, and the spirit world.

They Call You Back is the true chronicle of one man’s obsession to restore dignity to an undignified chapter in America’s past, while at the same time making a case for why we must heal our personal wounds if we are ever to heal our political ones.

NOTE:See site for details.

Where:Vroman’s

Date:Thursday the 6^th

Time:7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-06/tim-z-hernandez-discusses-they-call-you-back

Live Talks LA Presents: Ione Skye, with Jon Cryer, &Say Everything: A Memoirat Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre at New Roads School – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event

Ione Skye, in conversation with Jon Cryer,will her memoirSay Everything.

Gen X icon Ione Skye bares all in an achingly vulnerable coming-of-age memoir about chasing fame, desire, and true love in the shadow of her famous, absent father

Deserted by her dad, the folk singer legend Donovan, Skye was a ninth-grade dropout who sought solace and validation in the eyes of audiences and dreamy costars like Keanu Reeves, River Phoenix, Matthew Perry, John Cusack, and Robert Downey Jr. But like her sixties It Girl mom, Skye’s greatest weakness was musicians.

On the heels of a toxic relationship with the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis, which began when she was just sixteen and he was twenty-four, the actress leapt into wedded bliss with her first great love, Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz.

But marriage was not the magical hall pass to adulthood Skye had imagined. Awakening to her bisexuality and desperately insecure, she risked her fairytale marriage for a string of affairs with gorgeous nineties “bad girls.” The dream marriage imploded, and Skye’s trust in herself and her future along with it.

Set against a backdrop of rock royalty compounds, supermodel cliques, and classic late-century films like River’s Edge, Gas Food Lodging, and Wayne’s World, Say Everything is a wild ride of Hollywood thrills as well as a lyrical reflection on ambition, intimacy, and a messy, sexy, unconventional life.

Ione Skye made her film debut opposite Keanu Reeves in River’s Edge, followed by her iconic role as Diane Court in Say Anything. Skye has appeared in other notable film and television projects including Zodiac, Wayne’s World, Fever Pitch, Arrested Development, Camping, Good Girls, Beef, and much more. In addition to acting, Skye is a painter who has exhibited and sold her work for twenty-five years. She is the author of the children’s book, My Yiddish Vacation, and cohost of the weekly podcast Weirder Together. Ione is the mother of two daughters and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, and collaborator, the musician Ben Lee.

Jon Cryer’s award-winning career spans film, television, the stage and podcasts. He earned two Emmy Awards for his work as Alan Harper on the CBS hit comedy Two and a Half Men. Other television credits include: Extended Family, Supergirl, The Famous Teddy Z, Getting Personal, Partners, The Trouble with Normal. Film credits include: No Small Affair, Pretty in Pink, Hot Shots, Hiding Out, Shorts, Weather Girl, Hit by Lightning, Big Time Adolescence. He co-wrote, produced, and starred in two well-received independent films, The Pompatus of Love and Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God…Be Back by Five. Stage credits include: the New York Philharmonic revival of Company, Torch Song Trilogy, Brighton Beach Memoirs; Boys Life and 900 Oneonta. His memoir, So That Happened was a New York Times bestseller. Most recently he’s been active in the podcast world. Under his production company banner, Discount Sushi, he produced The Man Who Calculated Death, a true-life thriller; Lawyers, Guns and Money, a deep dive into the Iran-Contra scandal of the ‘80’s. He also guest-hosted several seasons of Undisclosed, a podcast whose investigations were instrumental in overturning the wrongful convictions of over a dozen people.

Time:8 pm

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

Website: https://livetalksla.org/events

How a Book Changed My Life Student Essay Contest: Letter to an Authorat Diamond Bar Library, LACL –In-Person Teen Event

If you’re a book lover, you’ve likely read something, fiction or non-fiction, classic or contemporary, that has left its mark on you. Now’s your chance to express your appreciation to the author with an essay in the form of a letter.

In this letter, you’ll describe how the author’s work has altered your worldview or personal life. Who knows—the author may even read it!

Don’t miss out on the opportunity.

Three (3) winners will be chosen and will each be awarded $300.

Pick up an entry form at Diamond Bar Library or download a form here. You can submit the completed entry form and essay by dropping it off or mailing it to Diamond Bar Library.

The deadline for submission isApril 15, 2025. Winners will be announced on April 26, 2025.

Prizes: $300 (3)

Contest Rules:

* Open to students ages 13-18

* Entries must be 1,000 words or less

* Must be mailed or dropped off at Diamond Bar Library

* All entries become the property of LA County Library

* A completed entry form must accompany all essay submissions

Sponsored by the Diamond Bar Friends of the Library

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where:Diamond Bar Library, LACL

Date:Friday the 7^th

Time:All Day (see site)

Address:21800 Copley Dr., Diamond Bar, CA 91765

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

Pajama Storytimeat Once Upon a Time, Montrose –In-Person Kids & Family Event

Our most popular story time is ready to delight and dazzle! This is also the prime time to see Pippi Longstocking, our bookstore cat in action.

Open to all ages. Free to attend.

There is a large FREE parking lot off Florencita Dr. as well as metered parking along Honolulu Ave. and Montrose Ave.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where:Once Upon a Time, Montrose

Date:Friday, the 7^th

Time:9:30 am

Address:2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020

Website:https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event

Book Club:H is for Hawkat Claremont Helen Renwick Library, LACL –In-Person Event

Join our monthly book club for an engaging discussion of our latest selection, H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald. For adults.

Find a copy of H is for Hawk in the library catalog here. A limited number of copies will be located at the Claremont Library. Please contact the library at 909.621.4902 with any questions.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where:Claremont Helen Renwick Library, LACL

Date:Friday the 7^th

Time:10:30 am – 11:30 am

Address:208 N. Harvard Ave. N, Claremont, CA 91711

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/13061112

First Fridays Book Club at Memorial Branch Library, LAPL –In-Person Event

Join us for a lively book discussion. Each month, we select a different title to read and discuss.

Call the Memorial Branch at 323-938-2732 to find out the month’s featured title

Where:Memorial Branch Library, LAPL

Date:Friday, the 7^th

Time:1 pm – 2:30 pm

Address:4625 W. Olympic Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90019

Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/first-fridays-book-club-1

Book Party:Bark Georgeat Topanga Library, LACL –In-Person Kids Event

Join us as we celebrate the book Bark, George by Julia Feiffer with fun activities for preschoolers ages 3 – 5!

This program is part of Smart Start at the Library, LA County Library’s collection of programs and services for early learners ages 0 – 5 and their caregivers.

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

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where:Topanga Library, LACL

Date:Friday the 7^th

Time:2 pm – 3:30 pm

Come join this exciting book club for young readers, where we will meet monthly to discuss the selected book and participate in journaling, crafting, or games. The selection for discussion this month is Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where:Diamond Bar Library, LACL

Date:Friday the 7^th

Time:4 pm – 5 pm

The Ventura County Poetry Festival is a 4-day event of poetry, art, music, and workshops.

Friday, March 7^th:

6:00 – 7:00 Music + Poetry $15/$5*

Four poets will perform work to live musical accompaniment.

7:30 – 9:00 Festival Slam $15/$5*

Twelve brave poets will compete in a standard poetry slam format for a cash prize!

Headliner: Jasmine Gardosi.

Jasmine Gardosi is a British writer and activist whose work has covered mental health and LGBTQ+ issues.

NOTE:Tickets and schedule available at studiochannekislands.org

Where:Studio Channel Islands Art Center

Date:Friday, the7^th(Day 2 0f 4)

Time:6 pm–9 pm

Join us for Bixby Knolls First Fridays from 6-9pm with special pop-up vendors, music, and more! Follow our creative collective KUBO LB (@kubo.lb) on Instagram for the latest First Fridays news.

THIS WEEK: We’re spreading ONE LOVE at First Fridays. Join us starting at 6:30pm for a Bob Marley + Black History Month Celebration.

Some fun things to expect include: Bob Marley tribute bands, Bob Marley inspired food items, Black History Month exhibits at the Expo Arts Center, and more.

To see the full list of festivities, visit: bixbyknollsinfo.com/first-Fridays

Special thank you to Team Fasnacht (DRE #02051365) and Port of Long Beach for making the event possible.

As always, most businesses on Atlantic Ave will stay open late

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where:Bel Canto, Bixby Knolls, Long Beach

Date:Friday the 7^th

Time:6:30 pm – 9:30 pm

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

From the New York Times-bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones, an unforgettable story of hardship and hope, courage and resilience, that follows one young woman’s journey through war-torn Italy.

1940, Emilia Romagna. Lili and Esti have been best friends since meeting at the University of Ferrara; when Esti’s son Theo is born, they become as close as sisters. There is a war being fought across borders, and in Italy, Mussolini’s Racial Laws have deemed Lili and Esti descendants of an ‘inferior’ Jewish race, but life somehow goes on—until Germany invades northern Italy, and the friends find themselves in occupied territory.

When Georgia Hunter was fifteen years old, she discovered that she came from a family of Holocaust survivors. Years later, she embarked on a journey of intensive research, determined to unearth and record her family’s remarkable story. The result is the New York Times best seller, We Were the Lucky Ones, which has been published in over 20 languages and adapted for television by Hulu as a highly acclaimed limited series. One Good Thing is Georgia’s second novel. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and their two sons.

Erica Lipez served as showrunner and executive producer for the 2024 Critic’s Choice Award-nominated limited television series, “We Were the Lucky Ones.” She was awarded Variety’s Faith & Spirituality in Entertainment Honor for her trailblazing storytelling in the series. Erica’s previous television writing credits include “The Morning Show,” “Julia,” “Bates Motel,” and “Suits,” among others. Erica received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her play “The Tutors” was produced at Second Stage Uptown in an acclaimed, extended run, directed by Thomas Kail. She’s a native of Maine and a graduate of Harvard University.

Where:Book Soup

Date:Friday the 7^th

Time:7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/georgia-hunter

L.A. Book Launch: Sara Phoebe Miller &You Belong Hereat The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

Author Sara Phoebe Miller will discuss You Belong Here with host Sarah Kuhn, and Elle Shaheen and Christopher Sean will do a reading.

There will be a book signing to follow. This is a ticketed event.

Everyone is welcome. RSVP required.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where:The Ripped Bodice

Date:Friday the 7^th

Time:7 pm – 9 pm

Address:3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323

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

At Skylight: Emily St. James, with Jon Lovett, & WOODWORKING at Skylight – In-Person Event

Emily St; James, in conversation with Jon Lovett,will discussWoodworking.

An unforgettable and heartwarming book-club debut following a trans high school teacher from a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other trans woman she knows: one of her students.

Erica Skyberg is thirty-five years old, recently divorced—and trans. Not that she’s told anyone yet. Mitchell, South Dakota, isn’t exactly bursting with other trans women. Instead, she keeps to herself, teaching by day and directing community theater by night. That is, until Abigail Hawkes enters her orbit.

Abigail is seventeen, Mitchell High’s resident political dissident and Only Trans Girl. It’s a role she plays faultlessly, albeit a little reluctantly. She’s also annoyed by the idea of spending her senior year secretly guiding her English teacher through her transition. But Abigail remembers the uncertainty—and loneliness—that comes with it. Besides, Erica isn’t the only one struggling to shed the weight of others’ expectations.

As their unlikely friendship evolves, it comes under the scrutiny of their community. And soon, both women—and those closest to them—are forced to ask: Who are we if we choose to hide ourselves? What happens once we disappear into the woodwork?

This is a remarkable debut novel from an incisive contemporary voice. A story about the awkwardness of growing up and the greatest love story of all, that between us and our friends, Woodworking is a tonic for the moment and a celebration of womanhood in all its multifaceted joy.

Emily St. James is a writer and cultural critic. This is her first novel. Her journalism and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, Vox, and The A.V. Club, and her writing for television has been featured on the Emmy-nominated series Yellowjackets. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.

Jon Lovett is a podcast host, former presidential speechwriter, and straight shooter widely respected on both sides. In 2017, he co-founded Crooked Media, where he co-hosts “Pod Save America” and hosts “Lovett or Leave It,” two beloved podcasts that are very good. He made his reality TV debut and goodbye in the first episode of Survivor season 47. His first book, Democracy or Else, co-authored alongside his Crooked Media co-founders, was released in June 2024. Before Crooked, he served as a speechwriter in the Obama White House and for Hillary Clinton, co-created a comedy on NBC called “1600 Penn” (canceled after one perfect season), wrote for “The Newsroom” with Aaron Sorkin, and posted many perfect tweets before deleting the app forever.

Where:Skylight

Date:Friday the 7^th

Time:7 pm

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

Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-emily-st-james-presents-woodworking-w-jon-lovett

Book Launch: Dean Spade, with Craig Willse, & Love in a F*cked Up Worldat Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event

In this inspiring self-help handbook, a trans activist dares us to be the change we want to see—both out in the world, and amongst our closest connections.

Love in a F*cked-Up World is a resounding call to action and a practical manifesto for how to combat cultural scripts and take our relationships into our own hands, preparing us for the work of changing the world.

Dean Spade is the author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law and Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the next). He has worked for twenty-five years as a leading voice for trans liberation, prison abolition, and mutual aid, and has been interviewed by Bloomberg TV, Democracy Now, the Nation, the Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness podcast, and countless other media outlets. He teaches at the Seattle University School of Law. Find him at deanspade.net

In conversation with Craig Willse: a writer, teacher, and developmental editor based in Los Angeles. His first novel, Providence, is out now from Union Square & Co. His writing has been published in HAD, Joyland, and Fence. As well as having published academic articles and essays on housing, war, art, and queer/trans politics.

Where:Stories Books & Café

Date:Friday the 7^th

Time:7 pm – 9 pm

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

All art forms welcome. Sign-ups at the door. Join us as we celebrate our creativity in a diverse and supportive environment.

Where:Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore

Date:Friday the 7^th

Time:7 pm – 9 pm

Address:12677 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar, CA 90069

Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/DGWcc-DT-_B/?hl=en&img_index=1

Poetry Reading: A Shared Condition at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event

This poetry reading features the following poets and writers:

Jeanette Clough holds an M.A. from the University of Chicago and worked as an art librarian at the Getty Research Institute. She edited for Solo, A Journal of Poetry, reviewed for Poetry International, and was Artist in Residence at Joshua Tree National Park. Her fourth poetry collection, Fire Roulette, features lyrical and narrative poems of personal risk.

Paul Lieber’s third collection, Slow Return, was just published by What Books Press. Three times nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Paul produced and hosted “Why Poetry” on Pacifica radio. He taught Poetry at LMU and facilitated the poetry workshop at Beyond Baroque. He currently teaches acting at AMDA.

Nightfall Marginalia (What Books Press), a 2023 Foreword INDIES Finalist for Poetry, is Sarah Maclay’s fifth collection. Her fourth chapbook, The H.D. Sequence—A Concordance (Walton Well Press), was released in 2024. She offers periodic workshops at Beyond Baroque and is the producer/host of Poetry.LA’s “The Poetry of Night.”

Holaday Mason is the author of six full-length collections & two chapbooks. Currently the poetry editor of the online fine art zine Furious Pure. Multiple Pushcart nominee, publications include Hotel Amerkia, Poetry International, Spillway, Solo, The River Styx among others. Holaday is also a fine art photographer. http://www.holadaymason.com

Jim Natal is the author of the forthcoming collection Everything Changes Everything, the new chapbook Étude in the Form of a Crow, and five previous full-length poetry books including Spare Room: Haibun Variations and Memory and Rain. A multi-year Pushcart Prize nominee, hIs work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies.

Mariano Zaro is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Decoding Sparrows (What Books Press, Los Angeles) and Padre Tierra (Olifante, Zaragoza, Spain). His poems and short stories have been published in anthologies and literary journals in Spain, Mexico, and the United States. His translations include Buda en llamas by Tony Barnstone and Cómo escribir una canción de amor by Sholeh Wolpé. He is a professor of Spanish at Rio Hondo Community College in Whittier. www.marianozaro.com

Where:Village Well Books & Coffee

Date:Friday the 7^th

Time:7 pm – 9 pm

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

A history of how humans have created monsters out of one another—from our deepest fears—and what these monsters tell us about humanity’s present and future.

Monsters are central to how we think about the human condition. Join award-winning historian of science Dr. Surekha Davies as she reveals how people have defined the human in relation to everything from apes to zombies, and how they invented race, gender, and nations along the way. With rich, evocative storytelling that braids together ancient gods and generative AI, Frankenstein’s monster and E.T., Humans: A Monstrous History shows how monster-making is about control: it defines who gets to count as normal.

In an age when corporations increasingly see people as obstacles to profits, this book traces the long, volatile history of monster-making and charts a better path for the future. The result is a profound, effervescent, empowering retelling of the history of the world for anyone who wants to reverse rising inequality and polarization. This is not a history of monsters, but a history through monsters.

NOTE:See site for details.

Where:Vroman’s

Date:Friday the 7^th

Time:7 pm – 8 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-07/surekha-davies-conversation-megan-kate-nelson-discuss-humans-monstrous-history

The Golden Mean: A USC & Beyond Baroque Reading Series at Beyond Baroque – In-Person & Online HybridEvent

Join us for the first installment of The Golden Mean, a quarterly reading series that brings together poets from USC’s PhD in Creative Writing & Literature program with other notable poets from Los Angeles and beyond.

Featured readings by: Alexandria Hall, Elizabeth Metzger, Nicholas Molbert, Chris Santiago, and Jorrell Watkins. Hosted and curated by L.A. Johnson.

Following the readings, be sure to join us for a reception & for book signings.

Alexandria Hall is the author of Field Music (Ecco, 2020), a winner of the National Poetry Series. She holds an MFA from NYU and is currently a PhD candidate in Creative Writing and Literature at USC. She was a founding editor of Tele- and now co-hosts the podcast You Shouldn’t Let Poets Lie to You. Her work has appeared in The Bennington Review, LARB Quarterly Journal, The Yale Review, and other publications. She lives in Los Angeles.

Elizabeth Metzger is the author of The Going Is Forever (forthcoming from Milkweed) and Lying In, as well as The Spirit Papers, winner of the Juniper Prize for Poetry. Her poems have been published in the New Yorker, Paris Review, Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Nation, and Poem-A-Day. Her essays have been published in Boston Review, Guernica, Conjunctions, PN Review, and Literary Hub, among others. She is a poetry editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Nicholas Molbert is a poet from South Louisiana. His first book, Altars of Spine and Fraction, came out last year from Northwestern University Press. His work appears in The Cincinnati Review, The Greensboro Review, Mississippi Review, and Missouri Review among others. He holds a PhD from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He’s working on a second book-length manuscript about the coastal communities and landscapes where he grew up.

Chris Santiago is the author of Tula, winner of the Lindquist & Vennum Prize and a Finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, and Small Wars Manual, to be published by Milkweed Editions next year. Recent poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Poetry Northwest, Beloit Poetry Journal, and American Public Media’s The Slowdown. A Poetry Mentor at the Loft and Fellow of the McKnight Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and Kundiman, he received his PhD from the USC Literature & Creative Writing Program and joined the Faculty of the CalArts Creative Writing Program in September 2023.

Jorrell Watkins is from Richmond, VA. He received fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution, Fulbright Japan and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. His chapbook, If Only the Sharks Would Bite, won the inaugural Desert Pavilion Chapbook Series in Poetry. His debut full-length collection, PlayHouse: poems was recently published by Northwestern University Press.

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

Where:Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date:Friday, the 7^th

Time:8 pm – 10 pm (Doors at 7:30 pm)

Address:681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-golden-mean-a-reading-series-tickets-1250367917099?aff=oddtdtcreator

SWAAM Spoken Word Art & Music Event at Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center – In-Person Event

SWAAM Spoken Word Art & Music is offered every 1st & 3rd Friday of the month and hosted byLoranzo Frank.

Featured guests:Ollie Basio Elder will be in the building.

Tickets at Eventbrite.

NOTE:See site for details.

Where:Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center

Date:Friday, the 7^th

Time:8 pm – 12 am

Address:4305 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008

Website:https://www.depoet.info/swaam

First Fridays Rapp Saloon Reading Series & Open Mic with host Cynthia Alessandra Briano at Rapp Saloon, Santa Monica – In-Person &OnlineHybridEvent

Third Friday:Elena Secota

Fourth Friday:Jim Bolt

Fifth Friday: James Evert Jones

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

Our featured guest poets and artists this month TBA.

NOTE:See site for details.

Where:Rapp Saloon at HISUA – In-Person & Online Event

Date:Friday, the 7^th

Time:8 pm – 11 pm

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

Saturday, March 8^th:

10:00 – 11:00 Workshop: Art of the Writing Exercise $25

Generate new work while learning which kinds of exercises best fit your style and writing interests.

Facilitator: Sean Colletti.

11:00 – 12:00 Workshop: Poetry in Performance $25

Develop skills to enhance the quality of your readings and performances.

Facilitator: Jasmine Gardosi.

12:00 – 1:00 Workshop: The Pursuit of Publication $25

Prepare for an exciting pathway toward future publications with the help of What Books Press. Facilitator: Elena Karina Byrne.

2:00 – 3:00 What Books Showcase $10/$5*

Los Angeles-based What Books Press will feature several performances from in-house authors.

3:30 – 4:30 Festival Competition Showcase FREE

Featuring poets selected by competition judge,

Laure-Anne Bosselaar.

5:00 – 6:00 Cocktail Hour FREE

Take a break for some fun and games, hosted by

Marsha de la O and Caleigh Tupy. Mocktails will be available.

6:30 – 8:00 Saturday Headliners $20/$5*

Performances from esteemed guests,

Dian Sousa and Michael Torres.

NOTE:Tickets and schedule available at studiochannekislands.org

Where:Studio Channel Islands Art Center

Date:Saturday, the8^th(Day 3 0f 4)

Time:10 am–8 pm

Address: 2222 Ventura Blvd., Camarillo, CA 93010

Website: https://www.instagram.com/vcpoetryfestival/ or https://events.humanitix.com/ventura-county-poetry-festival?c=web

Harry Potter Book Club (for Tweens!) at Lancaster Library, LACL –In-Person Tween Event

Welcome to the Harry Potter Book Club! For this session, we will be discussing Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Fun activities await! Costumes are welcomed.

Parents: Please be aware that snacks will be served. A list of ingredients will be available at the program.

Where:Lancaster Library, LACL

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:10:30 am – 12 pm

Join our monthly book club for an engaging discussion of our latest selection, The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh. 

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

Where:Hacienda Heights Library, LACL

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:10:30 am – 11:30 pm

Join us for a writing workshop with City of West Hollywood Poet Laureate Jen Cheng, where writers of all levels and genres will be inspired to create strong characters and sharpen details through character studies and improv exercises. For adults.

For this March edition celebrating Women’s Herstory Month, there will be a component of character studies for writing strong women characters.

Attendance is limited, and advance registration is required. This will be used to save your spot in the program. We cannot guarantee availability for any unregistered attendees.

RSVP

Where:West Hollywood Library, LACL

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:10:30 am – 12:30 pm

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

March 8: This is Happiness by Niall Williams

Where:Westwood Branch Library, LAPL

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:11 am

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

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

Adult Book Club: Between Two Moons at Littlerock Library, LACL –In-Person Event

Join us as we discuss our latest selection, Between Two Moons by Aisha Abdel Gawad. For adults.

Between Two Moons tells the story of twin sisters Amira and Lina as they come of age during Ramadan in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Their dreams of summer freedom are complicated by their brother’s return from prison and the rising tensions within their Muslim immigrant community. The novel explores themes of identity, belonging, and what it means to be a young Muslim in America as the sisters navigate family dynamics, community conflicts, and their own evolving sense of self.

Where:Littlerock Library, LACL

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:11 am – 12 pm

Únete a nosotros para una discusión facilitada sobre “La mitad evanescente” de Brit Bennet. Para adultos. This program is presented in Spanish.

Las copias del título actual estarán disponibles para retirar en el mostrador de servicio al cliente hasta agotar existencias. ¡Nuevos miembros siempre son bienvenidos! Este evento se llevará a cabo en español.

Where:Hollydale Library, LACL

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:11 am – 12 pm

Author Panel Presentation by the authors/contributors to Somos Chicanos Anthology:

Anglina Saenz – Award-winning Chicana author and educator

Brenda Vaca – Poet, author, and independent publisher of Riot of Roses Press

Diosa Xochiquetzalcoatl – Mulitlingual and multidimensional Xicana, Indigenous MeXicana poetiza

Erica Castro – Xicana English high school teacher, who has taught for 27 years

Jenesia Chavez – Chicana poet, public school teacher,and storyteller

For more information, please call the library 323 722-6660.

Where:Commerce Public Library, Rosewood

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:11 am – 12 pm

Join us for a table reading discussing the “What Is Freedom?” chapter in Between Past and Future by Hannah Arendt.

This reading is the second installment of a series of Table Reading sessions as part of the Fred Rogers Dewey Legacy Project (FRDLP), hosted by Renée Petropoulos.

For the first year we have delved into the final chapter of Fred Dewey’s book, The School of Public Life, reading the text “What Is Power?” This year we will continue to read texts by Hannah Arendt coming back to the historic beginnings of this series of Table Readings initiated by Fred.

This project involves participants reading aloud around a table and interpreting the text as each pulls meaning from it. The activity is a public interpretation of ideas, read together without “expertise,” but with mind and heart. There is no need to read anything ahead of time, as the text will be passed out at the table. Just come, sit, and read with us.

About the facilitator

Renée Petropoulos is an artist living in Venice, California. She has shown and performed her work internationally and is the recipient of many awards for her work. She is also part of the Fred Dewey Legacy Project, a group created to promote the life work of Fred Dewey. Most recently, she has performed at the Broad Museum and the Wende Museum (2022), continuing with her project Among Nations (Mostly).

NOTE: See site for further details and information.

Where:Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:11 am – 2 pm

Address:681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/table-reading-what-is-freedom-tickets-1263009458289?aff=oddtdtcreator

Storytime: Angie Kang & Our Lakeat Vroman’s – In-Person Kids Event

A tender and vulnerable exploration of love and loss that follows two boys as they take their first trip back to the lake without their father, from debut author-illustrator Angie Kang.

Today, Brother is taking me up to swim in the lake like Father used to.

I want to thank him for bringing us here, but I can’t find the words.

Instead, I loop my arms around his torso, and he does the same back.

Here, in our lake, the water holds us close.

On a sweltering hot day, a little boy mirrors his brother as he takes off his shirt, stretches, and walks toward the edge of the tall rock, ready to dive into the cool lake waters glistening below. Only this time, Father is not here. And the water looks so far away. How can he take the plunge?

With a gorgeous, deft touch in her exquisitely soft illustrations and words, Angie Kang conveys vulnerability, longing, and connection as these two boys hear Father’s laugh and see his memory all around them, uniting them in a bittersweet moment.

NOTE:See site for details.

Where:Vroman’s

Date:Saturday the 8^th

Time:11 am – 12 pm

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

Website: https://vromansbookstore.com/event/2025-03-08/angie-kang-discusses-our-lake

Big Read Book Discussion and Loteria Game: The House on Mango Street at Venice – Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL –In-Person Event

Participants will join together for a discussion of The House on Mango Street and a fun game of Lotería, a traditional Mexican game similar to bingo. Win exciting prizes like books, gift cards, and more! For teens and adults of all ages.

Where: Venice – Abbot Kinney Memorial Branch Library, LAPL

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:1 pm

Address:501 S. Venice Boulevard, Venice, CA 90291

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/intergenerational-womens-history-book-club-and-art-project

David Rondel is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Nevada, Reno. His main areas of research and teaching specialization include social and political philosophy, philosophy of law, American Pragmatism, and the philosophy of emotion. He has published widely in these areas. He is the author of Pragmatist Egalitarianism (Oxford University Press, 2018) and, most recently, the editor of The Moral Psychology of Anxiety (Lexington Books, 2024), and A Danger Which We Do Not Know: A Philosophical Journey into Anxiety (Oxford University Press, 2024). He lives in Reno, Nevada, with his wife and two children.

Claire Stanford is the author of the novel Happy for You, which was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and awarded the 2023 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. Her writing has appeared in Black Warrior Review, The Rumpus, Lit Hub, Electric Lit, The Millions, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications. She lives in Los Angeles, where she is an assistant professor of creative writing at Loyola Marymount University.

Email eden@lapl.org for more information.

Where: Edendale Branch Library, LAPL

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:1 pm

Address:2011 W. Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90026

A spy novel, an adventure story in which a child is tested both physically and mentally, a story of myth and utter madness, a story of refugees and the world’s willingness to turn a blind eye because of their own prejudices and self-preservation. This is the story of Europe in the late 1930s and is just as relevant to our world today. Max is a brilliant child growing up in Nazi Germany, he is a Jew, and he has two hilarious immortal creatures living on his shoulders. Kristallnacht convinces his parents to send him on the Kindertransport to England, separated from them because they believe it may be his only chance to survive, but Max is certain that his parents need him back in Berlin to help them survive. A little Stuart Gibbs with a touch of Rick Riordan and signature Adam Gidwitz, this is a powerful, hilarious, historical fiction filled with love.

Where:Cellar Door Bookstore

Date:Saturday the 8^th

Time:1 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/kids-book-club-max-house-spies

L.A. Themed Reading Club: White Oleander at Robert Louis Stevenson Branch Library, LAPL –In-Person Event

Love L.A. and reading about it? Join us for our L.A.-themed reading club. We will be discussing White Oleander by Janet Fitch, which tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes—each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned—becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.

Pick up your copy at the service desk.

Where: Robert Louis Stevenson Branch Library, LAPL

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:1:30 pm

Address:803 Spence St., Los Angeles, CA 90023

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/la-themed-reading-club

Women’s History Month: Women of Walt Disney Imagineering at Daimond Bar Library, LACL–In-Person Event

Join us as we meet authors Kathy Rogers and Elisabete (Eli) Erlandson and discuss their book: Women of Walt Disney Imagineering! For school-age kids, teens, and families.

The legendary female Imagineers will talk about their personal stories from their decades designing and building the Disney theme parks worldwide and share insights into their roles as trailblazers in their fields.

Where:Daimond Bar Library, LACL

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:2 pm

Gather to hear writers of the L.A. Community share their experiences and emotions in a post-Covid world

Upon the 5 year anniversary of the COVID-19 Pandemic that triggered “stay at home” orders in Los Angeles and California, this event invites the audience to reflect on how individuals survived the mental and emotional tolls of nearly three years of social distancing, and found healing, coping, and community through art.

With the publication of Lisa Eve Cheby’s chapbook, Contact Tracing, a book-length meditation and witnessing of the early days of lockdown, this program brings together writers and poets to reflect on the challenges, blessings, and the wisdom carried forth from this collective experience of isolation, the impending fear of illness, and the grief of loss.

The program includes readings & a conversation by Lisa Eve Cheby, Romaine Washington, Hazel Kight Witham, Noriko Nakada, Désirée Zamorano, and Kate Maruyama.

Lisa Eve Cheby, poet, librarian, and daughter of Hungarian immigrants, has been published in journals and anthologies including TAB: Journal of Poetics and Poetry, Santa Ana River Review, Exposition Review, So To Speak, Ruminate, Gathering, Drawn to Marvel, and Coiled Serpent. Her three chapbooks are available from dancing girl press. Lisa has been a writer in Residence at SAFTA’s Firefly Farms and Dorland Mountain Arts. She has been a participant in the Las Dos Brujas, Tin House, and Marge Piercy writing workshops, and is a member of Women Who Submit. Lisa holds an MFA from Antioch and an MLIS from San Jose State University. http://lisacheby.wordpress.com

Romaine Washington is a twice-nominated Pushcart Prize poet and editor of These Black Bodies Are…A Blacklandia Anthology (Inlandia Books). She is the author of a mini-memoir in verse, Purgatory Has an Address (Bamboo Dart Press), and Sirens in Her Belly (Jamii Publishing). Washington’s poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and her work appears in local and national publications including the Women Who Submit anthologies, Gathering and Accolades. She has presented her work on Inside Socal CBS2/KCAL9, NPR, and KPFK. Washington has been an educator for over twenty years and considers all forms of writing and reading to be a source for learning, healing, and growth.

Désirée Zamorano is the author of the groundbreaking historical fiction novel DISPOSSESSED and the highly acclaimed literary novel, THE AMADO WOMEN. An award-winning short story writer, her work is often an exploration of issues of invisibility, injustice or inequity. Her writing appears in Alta, Catapult, and The Kenyon Review. She lives and thrives in Altadena.

Hazel Kight Witham is a mother, teacher, writer, artist and slam coach, with a BA from Brown University and an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles. She has been an English Language Arts teacher in LAUSD since 2001, was a California Teacher of the Year finalist in 2020, and facilitates educator workshops on building a sustainable teaching practice. Hazel is a proud member of Women Who Submit, an organization dedicated to supporting women and non-binary writers. She is also the co-creator of the Take a Minute Substack, and her memoir-in-verse The Truth About Secrets came out in June 2024.

Noriko Nakada is a multi-racial Asian American who creates fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art to capture the stories she has been told not to talk about. Her memoir, Through Eyes Like Mine, was shortlisted for the 2040 Book Award. Excerpts, essays, and poetry have been published in Hippocampus, Catapult, Linden Ave, and elsewhere. She serves as a board member for Women Who Submit, an organization empowering women and non-binary writers to submit their work for publication. An LAUSD teacher, parent and UTLA union organizer, Noriko is represented by Emily Keyes of Keyes Agency. She lives on stolen Tongva Land in Los Angeles.

Kate Maruyama is the author of Alterations (Running Wild Press) The Collective (Writ Large Press) Bleak Houses (Raw Dog Screaming Press) and Harrowgate. Her novella, Family Solstice was named Best Fiction Book of 2021 by Rue Morgue Magazine. Her short work has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals including Asimov’s and Analog. She is on the Board of Directors for the Shirley Jackson Awards and has served on the Board for Women Who Submit. She writes, teaches, cooks, and eats in Los Angeles.

NOTE: See site for further details and information.

Where:Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:2 pm – 4 pm

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

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/contact-tracing-authors-reflect-on-the-covid-19-pandemic-tickets-1219793488159?aff=oddtdtcreator

Teen Book Club: And Then There Were None at Chatsworth Branch Library, LAPL –In-Person Event

Chatsworth Teen Council is hosting a monthly bookclub. One book will be read over three months.

The first book selection is Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. Copies of the book are available at the Reference Desk for check-out.

March 8: discussing pages 1-86

April 12: discussing pages 87-160

May 10: discussing pages 161-247

Where: Chatsworth Branch Library, LAPL

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:3 pm

Address:21052 Devonshire St., Chatsworth, CA 91311

Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/teen-book-club-1

March Book Discussion: I Lost My Girlish Laughter at North Hollywood Amelia Earhart Regional Branch Library, LAPL –In-Person Event

Join our monthly book discussion! It is held on the second Saturday of each month. The discussion will be led by a different member of our staff and the book of their choice. Pick up the next book a month before the discussion.

Join Tiffney this month as we merge Women’s History Month with Let’s Read Los Angeles (our Los Angeles-centric book club) and read I Lost My Girlish Laughter.

This lost literary gem (it was first published in 1938) was actually written under the pseudonym of Jane Allen by two women, Silvia Schulman (personal secretary to David O. Selznick) and playwright Jane Shore. Ever wish you could time travel back to a life on the movie studio lots of 1930s Hollywood? Read all about the tales of Madge, the personal secretary of a powerful Hollywood producer!

Where: North Hollywood Amelia Earhart Regional Branch Library, LAPL

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:3 pm

Address: 5211 Tujunga Ave., North Hollywood, CA 91601

This program is hosted in partnership with The Music Center, as a part of their Arts Grown L.A., which aims to deepen and expand the reach of free artistic events and performances throughout L.A. County.

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

Where:Baldwin Park Library, LACL

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:3 pm – 4 pm

Join us discuss The Townsend Family Recipe for Disaster by author Shauna Robinson. For adults.

With her wedding fast approaching, Mae feels a duty to connect to her estranged North Carolina family that her Black father always kept at arm’s length. She has a vision of harmony and belonging, but discovers instead that the Townsends are fighting with each other, practically at the breaking point. Instead of giving up, she boldly offers to organize the family barbecue and bring everyone back together.

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

Where:Lancaster Library, LACL

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:3 pm – 4 pm

Address: 601 W. Lancaster Blvd., Lancaster, CA 93534

Website: https://visit.lacountylibrary.org/event/12892957

Xingonx Fest – Mujeres de Maiz 28th Anniversary | Free at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes – In-Person Event

Join Mujeres de Maíz as they celebrate their 28th Anniversary with a book celebration bringing to one stage the writings, women and work of Mujeres de Maíz. The evening will include poetry, performance and platica.

The collection Mujeres de Maíz en Movimiento: Spiritual Artivism, Healing Justice and Feminist Praxis, features 40 essays, testimonios, and poems as well as 20 works of art in color by artivists, authors, and academics spanning a variety of topics. The project’s multidisciplinary, intergenerational, and critical-creative intervention, coupled with the unique subject matter, makes the book a must-have for high school and college students, activist scholars, artists, community organizers, and others invested in social justice and liberation.

Where:LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:3 pm – 5 pm

Address:501 N. Main St., Los Angeles, CA 90012

(Submit up to 3 poems totaling no more than 150 lines including the subject of or at least mentioning sky or key for Four Feathers Press online edition: libromobile

by emailing donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59pm, March 14th)

Don Kingfisher Campbellhosts and curates these events.

Where:Saturday Afternoon Poetry

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:3 pm – 5 pm

Address:Online Zoom Event

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

ROAR VII: Celebrating the Resilient Feminine: Features & Open Mic with L.A. Poet Society at Fusion Bar & Kitchen – In-PersonEvent

Join featured guests: Heather Parker, Andrea Lee, Mariana Franco, Egyptian Princess, Jessica M. Wilson, Anna Broome, Gia Civerolo, Jesse Bliss. Hosted by Jessica M. Wilson.

Hey friends, it is time to celebrate our annual ROAR, a celebration of the resilient feminine! Join us for ROAR VII (Womxns Roar 7), on International Women’s Day, March 8 from 4 to 8 PM for a special feature showcase of Women Creatives along with a silent auction, raffle, and vendor market. We also will hold an Open Mic to all genres.

Enjoy delicious food and drinks from Fusion Bar and Kitchen, as we embark on a new partnership with this wonderful venue serving El Monte and the San Gabriel Valley.

Tickets are $13 and include a raffle ticket. All proceeds go to support our small press that prioritizes queer trans black indigenous, people of color voices and social justice content.

Our goal is to raise $2000 to complete our printing schedule, distribute and promote our books.

We have room for more vendors. Our vendor fee is $40. Tickets can be purchased at the door or on our website www.lapoetsociety.org/shop

Where:Fusion Bar & Kitchen

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:4 pm – 8 pm

Address: 11672 Ramona Blvd., El Monte, CA 91732

S is For is an investigation of the Central American migrant crisis haunted by the past of the civil war in El Salvador, the meanings of family spirits, and trees disappearing to urban sprawl—always wielding the voice of the immigrant, the refugee, and the ever-present exile as a weapon against invisibility and displacement.

The author is joined by other notable writers of the SoCal region, including Doug Manuel, Arthur Kayzakian, and Cynthia Guardado.

William Archila is the winner of the 2023 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry for his collection S is For. His first collection The Art of Exile was awarded the International Latino Book Award, an Emerging Writer Fellowship Award from the Writer’s Center and was selected for The Fifth Annual Debut Poets Round Up” in Poets & Writers. The Gravedigger’s Archaeology, Archila’s second book, received the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize.

He has been awarded the Alan Collins Scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Fighting Fund Fellow Award from the University of Oregon. He was also awarded the 2023 Jack Hazard fellowship. His work has been published in Poetry Magazine, The American Poetry Review, AGNl, Copper Nickle, Colorado Review, The Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Missouri Review, Pleiades, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, Indiana Review, TriQuarterly and the anthologies Latino Poetry: The Library of American Anthology, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, and The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States. He has work forthcoming in Ploughshares. He is a PEN Center USA West Emerging Voices fellow and has received an MFA in poetry from the University of Oregon.

He is an associate editor at Tía Chucha Press. He lives in Los Angeles, on Tongva land.

Cynthia Guardado (she/her/hers) is a Los-Angeles born queer Salvadoran poet and professor. She is the author of two collections of poetry: Cenizas, (University of Arizona Press 2022) and ENDEAVOR, (World Stage Press 2017).

Arthur Kayzakian is the finalist for the 2023 Kate Tufts Award, and the winner of the 2021 inaugural Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series for his collection, The Book of Redacted Paintings, which was also selected as a finalist for the 2021 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. He is the recipient of the 2023 creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is also the winner of the Open Chapbook Competition for his chapbook, My Burning City. He has been a finalist for the Locked Horn Press Chapbook Prize, Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize, the C.D. Wright Prize, the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, and the Black River Chapbook Competition. He is a contributing editor at Poetry International and a recipient of the Minas Savvas Fellowship. He serves as the Poetry Chair for the International Armenian Literary Alliance (IALA). His work has appeared in several publications, including The Adroit Journal, Portland Review, Chicago Review, Cincinnati Review, The Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Witness Magazine.

Douglas Manuel was born in Anderson, Indiana and now resides in Whittier, California. He received a BA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University, an MFA in poetry from Butler University, and a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Testify (2017) and Trouble Funk (2023). His poems and essays can be found in numerous literary journals, magazines, and websites, most recently Zyzzyva, Pleiades, and the New Orleans Review. He has traveled to Egypt and Eritrea with The University of Iowa’s International Writing Program to teach poetry. A recipient of the Dana Gioia Poetry Award and a fellowship from the Borchard Foundation Center on Literary Arts, he is an assistant professor of English at Whittier College and teaches at Spalding University’s low-res MFA program.

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

Where:Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center

Date:Saturday, the 8^th

Time:7 pm – 8:30 pm (Doors at 6:30 pm)

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

Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/la-book-launch-s-is-for-by-william-archila-tickets-1222363384789?aff=oddtdtcreator

Open Mic Night at The Open Book, Woodland Hills – In-Person Event

Open Mic Night is hosted by Marley & Ely. FREE Event.

Talent gets 5 minutes each.

RSVP in the linktree.

Where:The Open Book, Woodland Hills

Date:Saturday the 8^th

Time:7 pm

Address:6316 Topanga Canyon Blvd. #2180, Woodland Hills, CA 91367

Melrose Trading Post Event & L.A. Poet Society at Greenway Arts Alliance at Melrose Trading Post at Fairfax H.S. –In-Person Event

The Melrose Trading Post is a pioneering arts-based marketplace held every Sunday at Fairfax High School in Los Angeles, CA with 275 local creative small business vendors, delicious food booths and local live music.

MTP was founded in 1997 with a mission to champion small businesses, art and community.The market funds Greenway Arts Alliance’s arts education programming and provides employment and leadership development opportunities for students at Fairfax High School.

JOIN us in space R18 each Sunday, from 11 am – 5 pm.

All poems are donation based, so you name your price.

NOTE:Check every Sunday for story time and reading events

Where:Melrose Trading Post, Greenway Main Stage at Fairfax HS

Date:Sunday, the9^th(Every Sunday)

Time:10 am–5 pm (market); 11 am – 5 pm (poets on demand)

Address:7850 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046

Sunday, March 9^th:

10:00 – 11:00 Workshop: Raise the Dead $25

Tackle that draft that keeps haunting you in this re-generative workshop. Facilitator: Laura Mullen.

11:00 – 12:00 Workshop: Writing for Performance $25

Learn ways to approach the writing and editing of poems with performance in mind. Facilitator: Jasmine Gardosi.

12:00 – 1:00 Festival Open Mic FREE

Come share your poetry with the festival audience.

Two rules: one poem; no epics. Hosted by Phil Taggart.

2:00 – 3:00 Ventura County Showcase FREE

Selected performances from poets representing different areas of Ventura County.

3:30 – 4:30 Poetry Heroes $10/$5*

Featuring James Lenfesty, Christopher Buckley & Mary Kay Rummel.

5:00 – 6:30 Sunday Headliners $20/$5*

Performances from esteemed guests,

Florence Weinberger and Mary Ann McFadden.

NOTE:Tickets and schedule available at studiochannekislands.org

Where:Studio Channel Islands Art Center

Date:Sunday, the9^th(Day 4 0f 4)

Time:10 am–6:30 pm

Local Poet Assia Lau’ren will be signing her book Exclusivity, I Am Not a Poet.

Where:Village Well Books & Coffee

Date:Sunday the 9^th

Time: 12 pm

Participants will discussTell the Wolves I’m Home: A Novel by author Carol Rifka Brunt.

1987. The only person who has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus is her uncle, the renowned painter Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her older sister, June can be herself only in Finn’s company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend. So when he dies, far too young, of a mysterious illness her mother can barely speak about, June’s world is turned upside down.

But Finn’s death brings a surprise acquaintance into June’s life. At the funeral, June notices a strange man lingering just beyond the crowd. A few days later, she receives a package in the mail containing a beautiful teapot she recognizes from Finn’s apartment, and a note from Toby, the stranger, asking for an opportunity to meet. As the two begin to spend time together, June realizes she’s not the only one who misses Finn, and that this unexpected friend just might be the one she needs the most.

Carol Rifka Brunt’s work has appeared in several literary journals, including North American Review and The Sun. In 2006, she was one of three fiction writers who received the New Writing Ventures award and, in 2007, she received a generous Arts Council grant to write Tell the Wolves I’m Home, her first novel. Originally from New York, she currently lives in England with her husband and three children.

Where:Cellar Door Bookstore

Date:Sunday the 9^th

Time:2 pm

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

Website: https://www.cellardoorbookstore.com/event/cellar-door-book-club-tell-wolves-im-home

Super-Italian helps you stock your shelves with healthy Italian superfoods and create meals that are nutritionally dense, supportive of health, and still downright craveable. The superfoods are featured and incorporated into every recipe.

Note: Please RSVP at site.

Where:Diesel, A Bookstore

Date:Sunday the 9^th

Time:3 pm

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

Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Giada-de-Laurentiis-March-9-Author-signing

Identity and the Apocalypse: Authors Rie Lee and Erik James Troy Present: Vessel and Icarus Dawns, Repectively at Flintridge Bookstore –In-Person Event

Rie Lee, author of the dystopian novel Vessel, and Erik James Troy, author of the sicence fiction novel Icarus Dawns discuss the intersections of dystopian and science fiction writing and different perspectives on presenting post-apocalyptic themes, including individualism versus collectivism.

The settings of both books invoke a sense of renewal in the wake of destruction. Lee’s is a renewal of community that leads to cult-like behavior. Troy’s renewal is a union crafted in spite of people’s differences.

RIE LEE (she/her/hers) is a little too obsessed with cults and almost definitely on some kind of FBI watchlist for researching pipe bombs. She is an alum of the MFA at EWU and is currently pursuing an MLIS focusing on user experience and the intersection of trust and information. Originally from Fresno, California, she now spends most of her free time at multiple libraries and coffee shops in the Los Angeles area, writing books or working on civic engagement initiatives.

In a ravaged world where survival depends on blind faith, true-believer Paige has one chance to escape an arranged marriage to a boy in her post-apocalyptic cult: by becoming its human sacrifice.

This role requires absolute purity, because the souls of her neighbors rest in her hands – but she’s starting to doubt her ability to deliver them to the afterlife. Not when she doesn’t know what to do with the inappropriate attraction she’s feeling toward another girl – her best friend, Mott.

When Mott and her brother get arrested, Paige finds her beliefs crumbling and faces two choices: hope that she’s pure enough to stay in the strict, zealous love their religion preaches, or run away from her idyllic community to the wastelands outside – to certain death.

ERIK JAMES TROY is the author of Icarus Dawns (Science Fiction)

Humanity has survived over 500 years on a lifeless planet, but cities there are becoming overcrowded underneath protective domes. An ensemble of characters with different scientific backgrounds are tasked with uncovering the truth about what happened to humanity’s home world and venture light years into the middle of the untamed universe to a frozen Earth. Their ensuing archeological study holds many secrets – lost technologies, remains of animals that went extinct centuries ago, and long forgotten chapters of human history.

Under the frozen Great Plains of North America, a secret government research facility houses what may be their only hope for answers.

Born and raised in the Boston area, Erik James Troy went to school in Cambridge and moved to the town of Andover, MA for the latter half of his childhood.

FROM THE AUTHOR: Always a science lover, I began writing this novel while talking with scientists in the greater Boston area. Many characters in the book are based on these real people who have lived through real events. Their takes on morality, religion, and philosophy are interesting subjects that come up in the world of science.

To my readers, I would advise you to have an open mind and an open heart. Even the worst of villains have some insight to offer, and the best of heroes are never perfect.

Where:Flintridge Bookstore

Date:Sunday, the9^th

Time:4 pm–5 pm

Address:858 Foothill Blvd., La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011

Website:https://www.flintridgebooks.com/instore-events/2025/3/2/happy-birthday-dr-seuss

Second Sunday Poetry Series & Open Micat The Studio Theatre at St. Denis Building – In-Person Event

The Second Sunday Poetry Series is hosted by Alex M. Frankel.

This month’s feature is Andria Hill.

From pen to paper comes her voice. She writes to heal, to hope, to remember. Andria Hill is a poet, singer, and songwriter from Los Angeles, California. Her poetry can be found in Electric Moon Magazine and the Altadena Poetry Review.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where:The Studio Theatre at St. Denis Building

Date:Sunday the 9^th

Time:5 pm

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

Celebrating 2 years of Mobile Data Mag!

Where:Café con Libros, Pomona

Date:Sunday the 9^th

Time: 6 pm

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

Website:https://cafeconlibrospress.org/ or https://www.instagram.com/authorpopups/

Library Gril Presents: For the Good Times – Tribute to Kris Kristofferson, with Bliss Bowen at Ruskin Group Theater – In-Person Event

This tribute to Kris Kristofferson is curated by Bliss Bowen.

Featuring Kristofferson’s songs performed by: Willie Aron and Milo Binder, Bliss Bowen with Marty Rifkin, Gwendolyn, JD Hinton, John McDuffie with Lynn Coulter, Dan Navarro, and Sandy Rogers.

Featuring readings by: Paula Batson, Susan Hayden, Steve Hochman, and Darrell Larson. Sunday night, March 9th at 7pm.

$20 includes free parking and dessert. For tickets, go to ruskingrouptheatre.com – Click SHOWS and look for Library Girl icon. Limited Seating! Library Girl is now in its 16th year. Created and Produced by Susan Hayden, every second Sunday night of the month at the Ruskin. ALL BOX OFFICE PROCEEDS DONATED TO RUSKIN GROUP THEATRE.

Hosted by Susan Hayden.

Where:Ruskin Group Theater

Date:Sunday the 9^th

Time: 7 pm

Address: 2986 Airport Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90405

Website: https://www.facebook.com/events/572267439154289/

March Fantasy Romance Book Club:One Dark Windowat The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event

March’s participants will discussOne Dark Windowby authorRachel Gillig.

General Manager Taylor will lead this discussion on reading fantasy and paranormal romance books. If you like witches, vampires, and other worlds, please join us.

Everyone is welcome. RSVP required.

NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.

Where:The Ripped Bodice

Date:Sunday the 9^th

Time:7:15 pm – 8:30 pm

Address:3806 Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323

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