Events Archives - Page 2 of 15

February 17, 2019October 5, 2023

7 big annual literary events in Los Angeles to put on your calendar now

If you’re here reading this, you’re likely a writer, and if you’re a writer, you’re likely really good at spending long swaths of time alone — because that’s basically what you need to do, to write.

For those times you need a little break from the isolation, here are seven big literary fetes where you can meet other people more comfortable in solitude:

Lit Crawl LA. The North Hollywood Arts District becomes the hub of Literary LA for one night each year, when irreverent readings and other fun happenings take place everywhere from local dive bars to fancy theaters. The night’s set up so that each of the three hours of the event, a dozen or so events happen concurrently, with a few minutes in between each hour to let crawlers get to their next event. Then there’s an afterparty at the end, with drinks and nibbles and socializing. Free, except for the ticketed afterparty.

More: Lit Crawl LA: A Night of literary happenings in North Hollywood

LA Art Book Fair. If artsy books are your thing, make your way to Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair in the spring to see artists’ books, monographs, zines, and more from international presses and indie publishers alike. The weekend event attracts tens of thousands each year. Free.

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. One weekend in April, USC brings together thousands of of Angelenos who come to hear Q&As with famous authors, literary panels, poetry readings, and more. Hundreds of booths will hawk everything from curious new diet cookbooks to self-published fan fiction to strange newfangled religions — as well as the more staid literary fare. Plus, there are tents for various topics, like kids, travel and cooking. I recommend taking the Expo there to avoid the crazy parking situation. Free (there’s a small fee to reserve tickets to popular events though you can take your chances in the standby line; the afterparty with famous authors costs real money).

Litfest Pasadena. This spring book festival brings together literary Pasadena, with events happening all over the cute town, from from Vroman’s Bookstore to Pasadena Playhouse. Last year’s event included a flash writing workshop and a discussion of Yelp reviews. Free.

Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival. Every summer, Angelenos get a chance to see two of Shakespeare’s plays performed free in Griffith Park. Go ready to picnic, snacks and pillows in tow. Sunscreen recommended. Free.

More: 5 tips for enjoying the plays.

Pasadena Festival of Women Authors. Started back in 2009 by a couple Pasadena residents, this annual event brings seven or so authors to give keynotes and breakout sessions. Past featured authors include Yaa Gyasi (Homegoing) and Pasadena’s own Victoria Patterson. Enjoy morning coffee and pastries as well as a midday lunch, plus book sales and signings throughout. Cost: $100 for the 2019 festival; tickets sell out early.

Southern California Poetry Festival. The first SoCal PoFest happened in 2016 at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach –I enjoyed reading with the Los Angeles Review crew — and organizers have since made it an annual thing. Free.

Originally published 9/19/16, last updated 2/17/19

Event poster images courtesy of respective organizations / Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival photo courtesy of Grettel Cortes Photography / bottom photo by Siel Ju

January 24, 2019October 5, 2023

I’m reading at UC Riverside Writers Week Conference 2019

I’ve long dreamed of reading at the same event as Margaret Atwood and Rachel Cusk — and next month, it’s really happening!

UC Riverside’s 42nd Annual Writers Week Conference happens February 4-5 and 11-15, 2019. Margaret Atwood will be there to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, Rachel Cusk will be there to give the keynote, and I — will be there as one of the writers.

There’ll be 23 writers in all, including Aimee Bender, Quincy Troupe, and Chris Kraus. And it’s all free, including parking! In fact Writers Week is California’s longest-running free literary event.

Hope to see you there. My reading will be Tue., Feb. 12 at 2:30 pm. All events happen on the UC Riverside campus in Screening Room 1128 of Interdisciplinary Building South — except for one off-site event in L.A. featuring Ayesha H. Attah on Feb. 16.

Thank you to Tom Lutz and UC Riverside for organizing this event.

January 10, 2019October 5, 2023

5 best writing workshops and classes in Los Angeles

Some writers are self-taught. I’m really, really not one of these. I’ve taken a lot of — perhaps too many — writing workshops. I majored in English writing as an undergrad, then got a PhD in creative writing — and apparently all that still wasn’t enough, because I’ve also taken a bunch of one-off writing classes all over town!

Single creative writing classes can be great for a lot of reasons: if you have no idea what you’re doing and need some direction from a mentor, if you’re not ready to commit an MFA program but need something structured to move your writing along, if you’re working on a specific writing project and want feedback on it from a group of writers, if you have a tough time motivating yourself to write without deadlines.

There are countless writing workshops offered on the internet, but I’ve stuck to on-ground classes for this post, assuming that if you’re reading a post specific to Los Angeles, you’re interested in meeting up with fellow Angelenos IRL. Here are five options to consider:
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UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.

You’ll really feel like you’re back in school if you sign up for a UCLA Extension class, which are held on the Westwood campus in actual classrooms, complete with chalkboards. Fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and screenwriting classes are offered — as well as weekend intensives and shorter workshops. Many classes are open to all; some of the intermediate or advanced classes require you to submit sample writing to be considered for admission.

Some of the classes I’ve taken here have been great, some kind of a waste of time. I recommend reading your potential instructor’s books before plunking down the money for the course — though even then, it’ll be a bit of a crapshoot. Then again, isn’t that true of anything in life?

Each class is limited to about 15 students; past and present instructors include Ben Loory (Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day) and Antonia Crane (Spent). A 10-week Introduction to Novel Writing class costs $699. UCLA Extension also offers certificate programs — the value of which I have a hard time understanding (why not just do an MFA then?) but which may appeal to you.

Writing Workshops Los Angeles.

Taking a WWLA class feels a bit like going over to a friend’s house — because these workshops are taught out of the instructor’s homes. Enjoy snacks and coffee or wine at these eight-week courses on fiction, nonfiction, poetry. You can also sign up for one to two-day seminars.

I’ve taken one fiction class with WWLA. It was more basic than what I was looking for at the time, but I enjoyed my time there and liked the people I met — a warm, supportive environment, especially for beginning writers.

Past and present instructors include Bernard Cooper and Margaret Wappler (Neon Green). One thing to note is that a significant number of WWLA instructors haven’t published a book — something to consider if you’re hoping for mentorship and guidance on the book publishing process. An 8-week Novel 1 class costs between $380 to $420.

Writing Pad.

This writing school offers one-day to 10-week classes ranging from more traditional short story and novel workshops to screenwriting and blogging bootcamps.

Writing Pad hosts occasional panels and events too. In fact, I found out about the school when a friend invited me to one of these; a handful of storytellers told hilarious tales about real-life experiences they’d gone through. I’ve never taken a class, but have heard good things — Many classes are capped at around 10 students, and take place in one of two locations: Writing Pad East in the Arts District, or Writing Pad West in Rancho Park. Past and present fiction instructors include Lauren Strasnick and Steph Cha (Dead Soon Enough). A five-week Novel 1 class costs $425.

Santa Monica College creative writing class.

As a California resident you can take legendary creative writing teacher Jim Krusoe’s 16-week workshop at Santa Monica College for less than $200.

Jim’s the author of The Sleep Garden, Girl Factory, and Toward You, among other books, and his SMC classes — voted Best Writing Class by LA Weekly in 2012 — are open to all, at least until they fill up. Check the latest class schedule to find out when he’s teaching next. Detailed instructions for signing up are on this post.

Beyond Baroque Workshops.

Looking for something less structured? Local literary nonprofit Beyond Baroque offers free weekly community writing workshops in fiction, poetry, and screenwriting at its historic Venice location. Drop by any week at the appointed time to get your work workshopped with fellow community writers led by a local writer-instructor.

Of course, since it’s a free, come-if-you-want type deal, you won’t get the same type of continuity you would with more formal, weeks-long classes. Each workshop will be a new adventure! And some of the instructors Beyond Baroque pulls in are pretty amazing; I went to a few of these a long, long time ago — and got to study with poet Will Alexander.

Donations are suggested. Beyond Baroque offers what it calls Professional Workshops too. For these, offerings vary widely in structure, as does the cost. (Earlier: 5 ways to give back to literary nonprofits in Los Angeles)
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There are many, many other small organizations and individuals in Los Angeles who offer all types of writing workshops — as well as writing coaching and editing services. If you’re interested in working with a specific local writer, try looking them up online; many teach, coach and edit.

And of course, you can always join a Meetup writing group or organize your own writing workshop. Don’t know enough writers to pull together your own group? Make some friends at these Los Angeles writing meetups where you can write in company.

Originally published 1/12/17; last updated 1/10/19

January 5, 2019October 5, 2023

3 Los Angeles writing meetups where you can write in company

Writing can get lonely. At writing meetup groups you can meet other writers — so you can be lonely together, sitting inches apart but not talking or making eye contact because, well, you’re writing.

If such get togethers appeal to you as much as they do to me, here are three to check out:

1. Writers Blok. The goal of Writers Blok is simple. You come, you buckle down and write for a set time, then you chat a little about your writing with other writers. The idea is that a little structure and a little company can work wonders for your writing habit — like getting you to actually develop said habit.

Located in the Culver City Arts District, Writers Blok is open every day and offers a break room with free drinks and snacks — including pour over coffee with beans roasted by the local coffee shop Bar Nine — and a sunny writing room with a mix of small and communal tables. More: Setting goals and finding community at Writers Blok.

Writers Blok. 2677 S. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles. Cost: $80-$95 a month membership or $10-$30 for single drop-in sessions.

2. NaNo Los Angeles. National Novel Writing Month happens every November — and while that challenge lasts just 30 days, the local organizers in L.A. often keep writing meetups happening at other times of the year.

November really is the best time to get involved with NaNo Los Angeles, since most of the fun events happen then. Stay motivated by following the NaNo Los Angeles Instagram page.

NaNo Los Angeles. Cost: Free.

3. Shut Up and Write! Show up, do quick intros, then shut up and write for a solid hour, at which point you’ll get to pat yourself on the back and socialize. There are three different SUaW locations at the moment — downtown LA, San Fernando Valley, and Conejo Valley.

Shut Up and Write! Check MeetUp page for dates, times, and locations. Cost: Free.
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As a sidenote — All three of the groups I’ve mentioned mostly attract genre fiction writers. If what you really want is to meet with others writing literary fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction, you’re more likely to find them at literary writing workshops.

There are many other writing meetup groups publicized on MeetUp and elsewhere; the above are simply three I’ve tried. Got another group to recommend? Let me know in the comments —

Originally posted 10/19/16; last updated 1/3/19

January 3, 2019October 6, 2023

Setting goals and finding community at Writers Blok

There’s something irresistible about the promise of bottomless mimosas on New Year’s Day. It sounds so — festive — even if I know that in real life, day drinking has a way of turning me into a depressed and maudlin sloth.

I did not want to start the new year as a depressed and maudlin sloth. However, I did want to start the new year writing. So at 9 am on Jan. 1, I found myself at Writers Blok for its Kickstart Your Year in Writing event: three hours of semi-structured writing time intercut with socializing and goal setting with other writers — fueled by coffee, tea, fruit, nuts, and mimosas.

The mimosas came in two varieties: real and virgin.

The goal of Writers Blok is simple. You come, you buckle down and write for a set time, then you chat a little about your writing with other writers. The idea is that a little structure and a little company can work wonders for your writing habit — like getting you to actually develop said habit.

I went to my first Writers Blok event a couple years ago, when these writing sessions were held just one night a week in a garishly-lit upstairs room of a church in Santa Monica. Since then, Writers Blok has gotten its own cute space in the Culver City Arts District. There’s a break room with drinks and snacks — including pour over coffee with beans roasted by the local coffee shop Bar Nine — and a sunny writing room with a mix of small and communal tables.

Sessions happen every day. In fact, most days, writers could conceivably spend up to nine hours at Writers Blok, doing one session after another with breaks for meals.

But really, a few hours is probably enough for most people, most days. The three-hour new year morning event was broken up into two sessions. First, I checked in and got a piece of chalk to write down my writing goal on a board — to journal three pages — then sat down for an hour to try and achieve it. At the end of the hour we all gathered around the board to talk about how we did. I managed to write just two pages, partly because journaling tends to make me ruminate, and partly because of the freezing temperature of the space — It’s been unusually cold in L.A. lately — which prompted me to keep getting hot cups of tea to keep warm.

Then came the extended session — ninety minutes of writing, after which we broke into small groups and ate dark chocolate while answering prompt questions about our writing, which on this day had to do mostly with what we planned to write in 2019.

In our small group of five, I was especially touched by what one woman with a gentle smile shared. She’d recently finished an essay about a medical mishap that had taken away the use of one of her hands. Her goal for 2019 was to turn that into a longer work.

Five cups of chamomile tea, three bananas, two journal pages, and a thousand words in a Google doc later, I left Writers Blok with a goal to keep writing a thousand words a day in 2019, even if I don’t yet know what will become of that freeflow of words.

Interested in trying out Writers Blok for your own writing goals? Until Jan 15, you can sign up for a free 7-day trial. Otherwise, you can opt for the $80-$95 a month membership or pay $10-$30 for single drop-in sessions. Writers Blok also hosts occasional events and workshops, free or discounted for members.

Writers Blok. 2677 S. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles.

December 28, 2018October 6, 2023

Getting Hitched before the New Year

Sometimes you mean to go to a reading series that sounds cool, but you put it off, and a year goes by, then two, then three and four, until finally, when you actually go because it’s the week between Christmas and New Years so you’ve got the time and even traffic in L.A. isn’t too bad, you walk into the event and there’s free champagne and mini cupcakes because it’s the reading series’ eighth anniversary.

Which is to say: Hitched has been around the L.A. literary scene long enough to become a standard feature. The quarterly series was started by local poet Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo (pictured above), who back in 2010, was a recent MFA graduate from Antioch University Los Angeles. Since she knew a lot of faculty mentors from her grad program — and also knew their writing mentees — Xochitl got the idea to start a reading series that featured literary pairings: mentors and mentees, teachers and students, collaborators and collectives, and other writerly partners. “It’s a celebration of those relationships,” she said.

The series started out at Beyond Baroque in Venice but has since roamed around different locations across the city. The final event of 2019 was held in Other Books, a brightly-lit and eclectically curated book, comics, and record store in Boyle Heights. A couple dozen people filtered in bundled up in coats and rubbing their hands — it was a blustery night in the mid-fifties — mostly ignoring the treats, perhaps already maxed out on holiday indulgences.

I wasn’t. I had two mini cupcakes: one chocolate, one vanilla. Then Xochitl took the mic and introduced the first pair, Rocío Carlos and Rachel McLeod Kaminer, who’d collaborated on a just-published book of poems called Attendance (The Operating System).

Rachel read first (sample line: “A year like this passes so strangely somewhere between sorrow and bliss”), then Rocío took the stage. Her lavender hair matched the lavender book, and the poems she read were sprinkled with lavender (sample line: “Make me lavender, you said to her).

Every writer’s work this night incorporated Spanish words and phrases, which most of the audience seemed to understand, judging by the small murmurs of assent. I did not, though for the most part I could follow along (though does anyone else have the issue of zoning out during poetry readings, regardless of language?). The beginning of Xochitl’s website bio reads, “Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo is a first generation Chicana,” and Hitched reflects Xochitl’s effort to seek out similarly marginalized voices.

Poet Sara Borjas got up next. “I’m gonna read what I’m calling an essay, but it looks like this,” she said, and thrust out a sheet of paper toward the audience. It had fragments of writing segregated into individual small boxes on the page. She started reading; the essay was loosely about her mother’s gastric bypass surgery (sample line: “Her body anchored her to our house.”) but touched heavily on themes of Chicana identity and authenticity. I learned one Spanish word — pocha, a pejorative term used to describe Chicanas deemed too Americanized — that Sara used as a refrain throughout the piece.

Sara’s pair, poet Ruben Quesada, had gone to Chicago for Christmas and ended up staying longer than planned, so the last reader was a last-minute addition: Sonia Guiñansaca, a queer, migrant poet in town from Harlem for the holidays. Xochitl read an exuberant bio (“One of the 13 coolest queers on the internet according to Teen Vogue!”) then Sonia went up to applause.

“This is a poem for all the migrant folks in the room,” she said, then performed a long, expressive poem from memory (sample line: “I call it old school. Some call it poverty.”).

Afterwards Xochitl begged the audience to eat, drink, mingle, and buy books. Rachel and Rocío stood around the front, holding their twin books and smiling. “What was the collaborative process?” I went up and asked, and Rocío said it had happened after the two of them finished their MFAs at Otis College of Art and Design. They decided to check in with other once a week about their writing, and out of that, a book was born.

I commented on the lavenderness of Rocío hair, book, and poems. “Did you plan it?” I asked. “No,” she said, laughing. Then she touched her hair. “I don’t even know how it looks right now!”

She spotted a mirror in the corner, walked over to to it, and gently patted loose strands into place.

Hitched. Quarterly, times and days vary (check Facebook for new events), Los Angeles.