This September, Read Local SoCal is reading Orbital Bebop by Reuben “Tihi” Hayslett. Orbital Bebop is a daring collection of speculative stories set from the Moon to the edge of the Year 3000. Black queer lives take center stage amid corporate empires, alien intelligences, and fractured futures. Each tale blends intimacy and rebellion, where romance, memory, and desire collide with power and control. The collection opens in 2067 California, and Tihi is a longtime part of the LA literary community, having read in BookSwell’s Intentional Intersectionality event in 2019. Read along with us all month.
“This isn’t your father’s science fiction, and that’s a good thing.” — Jerry L. Wheeler, Out in Print
Four local writers dare to break the rules, raise their voices, and refuse to compromise.
WeHo Reads: No Apologies
Online Via Zoom and YouTube
Free, RSVP Requested
What does a writer sacrifice when they soften their work to fit the mold? And what becomes possible when they refuse?
This November, four local writers confront subjects many books shy away from: race, desire, class, the messy moments when life stops making sense. They decline to sand off the rough edges. Their work runs from punk-inflected inter-genre prose to memoir, from poetry to historical fiction, but the nerve is the same: they write without asking permission and without apology. In an evening of reading and discussion, Marcus Clayton, Joshua Escobar, Rasheed Newson, and Kaila Yu will talk about writing hard truths, the pressure to make difficult material palatable, and what a writer stands to gain by holding the line.
Featuring:
Marcus Clayton is a multigenre Afrolatino writer from South Gate, who has a collection of inter-genre prose, ¡PÓNK!, with Nightboat Books.
Joshua Escobar is a poet, novelist, and screenwriter from Southern California’s Inland Empire and author of the Bo Huston Award-winning novel Demons of Eminence.
Novelist Rasheed Newson is the author of the national bestseller My Government Means to Kill Me, which was named one of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2022, and the critically-acclaimed There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood, which explores Black LGBTQ+ life during Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Kaila Yu is a Los Angeles-based author and journalist whose debut memoir, Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty, was published by Crown, with bylines in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times and Condé Nast Traveler.
WeHo Reads is a literary series presented by the City of West Hollywood. For more information and events, visit www.weho.org/wehoreads. The 2026 program is produced by BookSwell, a literary media company amplifying historically excluded voices. Additional support is provided by media partnerships with Book Soup and Los Angeles Review of Books. Attendees are advised that the program may include mature language and themes.
Authors
Marcus Clayton
Marcus Clayton is a multigenre biracial Black and Costa Rican writer from South Gate, CA, and a current part-time professor for English and Ethnic studies departments across the California State University system. He has an inter-genre story collection titled ¡PÓNK! with Nightboat Books, is a 2026 finalist of the DAG Foundation Prize for Literature, and has published work in the anthology Black Punk Now!. He moonlights as a guitarist and shouts for Los Angeles punk band, tudors., and spends a lot of time at home tolerating his hyperactive pug named Darby Crash.
Joshua Escobar is author of the chapbooks Califorkya Voltage (No, Dear/Small Anchor) and xxox fm (Doublecross Press), a full-length collection of poems, Bareback Nightfall (Noemi Press and Letras Latinas), and a novel, Demons of Eminence, that was the winner of the 2023 Bo Huston Award. Recipient of the 2022-2023 Faculty Excellence Award, they direct the Creative Writing program at Santa Barbara City College, where they co-publish the arts magazine Open Fruit. A 2026 Queer | Arts Fellow, they are at work on an original TV show about Mexico City’s electronic underground.
Rasheed’s writing career began when he partnered up with T.J. Brady, and together they were hired as staff writers on the Fox drama Lie to Me. As a writing team, Rasheed and T.J. have worked on Narcos, The Chi, and Shooter, among other drama series. They are currently executive producers on Bel-Air.
Over the course of roughly two years, Rasheed wrote the novel My Government Means to Kill Me. It was a passion project that he wasn’t sure would attract a publisher. However, his literary agent, Jim McCarthy of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret, saw potential in the manuscript. So did his literary editor, Nadxieli Nieto of Flatiron Books. Rasheed is grateful to both of them.
Rasheed’s second novel, There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood, was published by Flatiron in June of 2026. Recently, Rasheed was selected as a 2025–26 American Library in Paris Visiting Fellow. Rasheed lives with his husband and their two children in Pasadena, California.
Kaila is an author based in Los Angeles. Her debut memoir, Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty, was just published with Penguin Random House’s Crown Publishing. She’s also a luxury travel and culture writer with bylines in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times, Condé Nast Traveler, and many more.
Five queer authors open portals to spectacular new worlds and dare us to get lost in them.
WeHo Reads: Into the Unknown
Online Via Zoom and YouTube
Free, RSVP Requested
What can we discover in worlds that have never existed? And how does queer imagination remake the rules of magic, adventure, and belonging?
This October, five queer fantasy and YA authors venture past the edges of the map, into imagined realms cozy, macabre, sweeping and strange. Their books conjure witches and spellwork, alternate universes, and heroes who have rarely seen themselves at the center of the story. In an evening of reading and discussion, Georgia K. Boone, Kiri Callaghan, Lizzy Ives, C.B. Lee, and Shelly Page will talk about building the fantastical, the freedom of the undiscovered, and why imagined worlds can tell the truest stories about our own.
Featuring:
Georgia K. Boone is the author of the critically acclaimed YA novel And Other Mistakes and When We Almost Came Undone, both of which are Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selections.
Kiri Callaghan is a best-selling author of sapphic fantasy fiction that’s both cozy and a little macabre, including The Hemlock Saga and its latest installment, The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Spite & Spellwork.
Lizzy Ives is the author of Fat Witch Summer and Thick Witch Travels and co-designer of the upcoming cozy fantasy board game, Bookwyrm.
C.B. Lee is a New York Times bestselling author of young adult and middle grade fiction, including the Lodestone Award for Best Young Adult Book–winning Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe, A Clash of Steel, and the acclaimed Sidekick Squad series.
Shelly Page, the author of Brewed with Love and Charmed and Dangerous, writes young adult fantasy romance and horror, and practices immigration law.
WeHo Reads is a literary series presented by the City of West Hollywood. For more information and events, visit www.weho.org/wehoreads. The 2026 program is produced by BookSwell, a literary media company amplifying historically excluded voices. Additional support is provided by media partnerships with Book Soup and Los Angeles Review of Books. Attendees are advised that the program may include mature language and themes.
Authors
Georgia K. Boone
Photo by Carrie Truong
Georgia K. Boone is the author of the critically acclaimed YA novel And Other Mistakes and When We Almost Came Undone, both of which are Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selections. She’s also the author of the forthcoming horror anthology Can’t You See It’s Coming? When not writing about women who defy expectations, she plays video games and annoys her dogs. She lives with her family in Los Angeles.
Kiri Callaghan is an author of fantastical sapphic fiction, performer and poet. Existing work consists of The Hemlock Saga, The Terra Mirum Chronicles, The Seek Anomalie Podcast and a collection of original poems performed live at the Los Angeles Poetry Brothel.
Lizzy Ives (she/her) is the author of Fat Witch Summer and Thick Witch Travels. A lover of magic and whimsy, she grew up in the fog of the San Francisco Bay Area and now burns in the sun of Los Angeles with her husband, her cats, and their massive board game collection. Lizzy is currently working on Big Witch Energy, the third book in The Thirteen States series, and the upcoming cozy bookshelf board game Bookwyrm.
C.B. Lee is a New York Times bestselling author of young adult and middle grade fiction, including the Lodestone Award for Best Young Adult Book–winning Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe, A Clash of Steel, and the acclaimed Sidekick Squad series. Their works have received seven starred reviews and been finalists for multiple awards, including the Lambda Literary Award.
Shelly Page is a young adult contemporary fantasy romance and horror writer. By day, she’s a practicing immigration attorney. By night, she’s writing stories about love, magic, and mystery—all with the hope of providing genuine representation for queer readers of color. Shelly lives in Los Angeles with a collection of half-dead plants. Brewed with Love is her first solo novel. Charmed and Dangerous is her second.
BookSwell is proud to support the Los Feliz Writers Festival, a free, neighborhood-built celebration of local writers returning for its second year, August 19–23, 2026. Thirteen free events, twenty volunteers, and one clear idea: that a writing community can be inclusive, human, and rooted right where you live. We asked co-director Sammy Ginsberg a few questions about how it all comes together. (See the full schedule and RSVP →)
Is there a conversation you’re hoping the festival starts, or continues?
Ooooh this is a good question! The answer is yes!! I’m hoping to talk about how we can make the writing community inclusive, human, and grounded in the neighborhood! Many MFA programs and the writing industry are based in NYC or ask writers to leave their communities and either move or drive to institutions to teach writers, workshop their writing, and participate in the writing community.
This festival is asking:
Who are the writers who live in your neighborhood?
What do they write about?
What can you learn from them?
How can you be in community with them especially when they are different from you?
What is the role of the neighborhood council and council district representative in this work given the role that writing plays in upholding democracy, teaching values, and accessing our education system — you can’t graduate high school without being able to write!
What does it mean to be human in the 21st century (the humanities!!) and how can we design a culture and city around that as well as create and maintain policies that protect our humanity?
The festival grew out of a communal writing practice. How does that shape the mission and programming?
Writing every week together (now twice a week!) affects our programming deeply. Most of the writers who are performing or facilitating writing workshops at the festival I met and got to know because I host the Shut Up and Write every week! Our communal writing practice isn’t about giving feedback. It’s about meeting every week to eat dinner (if you want — which I always do!), focus on whatever you want to focus on for one hour, share community updates (by word of mouth! Like the old days!!), and hang out (if you want! You can also leave!)
Since this happens every week, there is no urgency to get someone’s number or you’ll never see them again! Just come back next week.
This has allowed our relationships to develop slowly, as well as to create a communal third space. We are working to move community organizing from individuals and private corporations that can disappear if you stop paying or a single person burns out — and to find out who are the people who need what you need and to create infrastructure that can be maintained for generations (we’re dreaming but also why not! Central Library just turned 100!).
This means we can get to know each other as humans who love writing rather than writers who are competing for attention, awards, and publishing opportunities!
My favorite thing about writing (unlike other artforms!) is that most writers peak in their 50s and onward! It takes decades of work and reflection to create something that can speak to generations for centuries!! One of my favorite writers Dr. Edith Eger published her first book The Choice at 89, and was a New York Times Bestseller!
In addition, we created a public planning committee meeting for the festival that has met twice after our Shut Up and Write where we share updates and ask for feedback.
This festival is for our community and led by our community. And anyone who lives, works, or plays in Los Feliz is welcome to be part of it! By showing up and becoming a regular!
What do you want Angelenos from other neighborhoods to know?
I want Angelenos from other neighborhoods to know that given the commuter culture of Los Angeles, they too are part of our neighborhood and we are so excited to write alongside them and learn about their writing! At the same time, I would be so excited if you left this festival inspired and empowered to set up your own festival, Poet Laureate, and weekly writing group in your neighborhood — and would love to attend your festival and learn about the writers who live in your neighborhood! When I lived in the UK (I was there for seven years!!) I spent my weekends volunteering at wee literary festivals all over the UK! From Bradford to Teignmouth to Tamworth, I was there and it was magical!! Teignmouth has 15,000 people living in it! Los Feliz has 40,000! What is the population of your neighborhood?!
What’s different this year, the second time around?
Last year, the festival was two volunteers (Dawn Socha and I!) and 6 events. This year is 20 volunteers and 13 events!!! We kept our Voices of Los Feliz Celebration (hosted by the Voice of Los Feliz Phil Leirness) and made it even more special by publishing a neighborhood zine with the theme Radically Human paid for by a grant from the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council and printed at our local print shop Copy Cat featuring 37 writers who live and commune in Los Feliz!!!! Check out our zine here! All the other events are new!!
About Sammy
Sammy Ginsberg is third-generation Angeleno and dual citizen with the UK who loves writing, believes in the transformational power of the word (a word after a word after a word is power — Margaret Atwood), and would love to write alongside you! Follow her at @literarypixie.
Four Los Angeles writers return to the past, through fiction and poetry, to understand where we came from.
WeHo Reads: Reimagining History
West Hollywood Library Community Room, 625 N San Vicente Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Free, RSVP Requested
Why do we keep returning to history? And what changes when we recover what was buried, silenced, or forgotten?
WeHo Reads returns in September with four acclaimed Los Angeles writers whose work reaches back into personal, political, and civic histories and reshapes how we see it. Through historical fiction and poetry, Kate Maruyama, Steven Reigns, Mike Sonksen, and Désirée Zamorano explore why the past still shapes the present, and what we can learn from seeing it through new lenses. In an evening of reading and discussion, they ask how memory, imagination, and the craft of writing become tools for reimagining where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going.
Featuring:
Kate Maruyama is a professor of writing and an author of realist and fabulist novels, short stories and essays set in and about Los Angeles.
Steven Reigns is a poet and educator who was the inaugural City Poet Laureate of West Hollywood and author of A Quilt for David, which explores the life of David Acer, a Florida dentist wrongfully vilified during the height of the HIV/AIDS panic, and Outliving Michael, which received the ‘Best in Literature’ 2025 Poz Award.
Mike Sonksen, aka Mike the PoeT, is a poet, professor, journalist, historian & tour guide with work in publications like the Academy of American Poets, Alta, PBS, Poetry Foundation & Westways.
Désirée Zamorano, author of the historical fiction novel Dispossessed and the collection of short stories, Amarisa’s Cooking Pot, delights in writing about the ordinary and the extraordinary.
West Hollywood City Poet Laureate Jen Cheng will open the event with the reading of a poem.
Free parking is available in the 5-story Public/Park Parking Structure at 625 N. San Vicente Blvd.
WeHo Reads is a literary series presented by the City of West Hollywood. For more information and events, visit www.weho.org/wehoreads. The 2026 program is produced by BookSwell, a literary media company amplifying historically excluded voices. Additional support is provided by media partnerships with Book Soup and Los Angeles Review of Books. Attendees are advised that the program may include mature language and themes.
Authors
Kate Maruyama
Kate Maruyama is the author of Alterations, The Collective, Bleak Houses, and Harrowgate. Her novella Family Solstice was named Best Fiction Book of 2021 by Rue Morgue Magazine. She serves on the Diverse Works Inclusion Committee of the Horror Writers Association and on the Board of The Shirley Jackson Awards. She writes, teaches, cooks, and eats in Los Angeles.
Steven Reigns is a Los Angeles poet and educator and was appointed the first Poet Laureate of West Hollywood. Alongside over a dozen chapbooks, he has published the collections Inheritance and Your Dead Body is My Welcome Mat. Reigns holds a BA in Creative Writing from the University of South Florida, a Master of Clinical Psychology from Antioch University, and is a sixteen-time recipient of The Los Angeles County’s Department of Cultural Affairs’ Artist in Residency Grant. He edited My Life is Poetry, showcasing his students’ work from the first-ever autobiographical poetry workshop for LGBT seniors. Reigns has lectured and taught writing workshops around the country to LGBT youth and people living with HIV. Currently he is touring The Gay Rub, an exhibition of rubbings from LGBT landmarks, and is the board president of the Anaïs Nin Foundation. His collection A Quilt for David was published by City Lights and is the product of over ten years of research regarding dentist David Acer’s life. His newest collection Outliving Michael is a memorial memoir in poetry, chronicling Reigns’s profound friendship with Michael Church, who died of AIDS in 2000.
3rd-generation Angeleno Mike Sonksen, aka Mike the PoeT, is a poet, professor, journalist, historian and tour guide whose work has appeared in publications like the Academy of American Poets, Alta, PBS, Poetry Foundation & Westways. Sonksen’s read poetry at over 100 academic institutions, appeared on radio and television and hosted events at the Grand Performances and Getty Center. His latest book, Traces, Places, Faces debuts this Fall.
Los Angeles native Désirée Zamorano is the author of the groundbreaking historical novel, Dispossessed, as well as the highly acclaimed literary novel, The Amado Women. An award-winning and Pushcart prize–nominated short story writer, Zamorano’s work explores invisibility, injustice, and inequity. A selection of her work can be found in Alta, The Kenyon Review Online, and Akashic’s South Central Noir. She teaches linguistic and cultural diversity at California State University Long Beach and is a senior fiction editor at Silk Road Review.
Jen Cheng is the 5th West Hollywood City Poet Laureate and the author of Braided Spaces. A Poet Laureate Fellow with the Academy of American Poets and a California Arts Council Fellow, she merges multilingual and multicultural influences through her concept of Feng Shui Poetry.
