BookSwell Leads Literary Community to Swell in Support of the WeHo Reads 2022 Road to Joy Series

Following a successful start to the City of West Hollywood’s 2022 WeHo Reads literary series, sponsors and partners are increasing their support throughout the fall season. The theme for this year’s WeHo Reads series, which is being produced by BookSwell, a literary events and media company, is Road to Joy. Guest poets and authors are discussing how they create joy in their writing and lives and inviting readers to find their own paths to healing and contentment. Events in the series include moments of guided meditation, art appreciation, writing prompts, a photography contest, and other creative projects.

BookSwell executive editor Cody Sisco says that he intended the Road to Joy series to be both a community-led initiative and a memorable gathering of Southern California-based writers and poets. Participating writers have been inspiring their audiences to seek joy in troubled times both before and during the coronavirus pandemic. Sisco says, “It’s been inspiring to see the community come together in support of the writers featured in this series.”

In addition to the resources dedicated by the City of West Hollywood to produce the series and provide honoraria for the participating writers, Sisco points to a sponsorship by the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. “Publishing is not a financially sustainable endeavor for most writers so creating income streams from literary events is vital to the health of our literary community,” Sisco says. “Thanks to the additional support of the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, BookSwell is providing larger honoraria and reaching a wider audience.”

Charlie Jensen, the director of the program, says, “The UCLA Extension Writers’ Program is proud to support WeHo Reads and in particular the vibrant writers who appear in the events. Like BookSwell, we are committed to supporting literary community and helping writers feel connected to one another and to their audiences.”

Additional support for individual events and participating writers has also been a boon. For example, Beyond Baroque sponsored the first event, which featured Shonda Buchanan, Peter J. Harris, and Imani Tolliver, all of whom have worked for decades to grow and support the Los Angeles literary community. Poets & Writers provided additional support for individual participants through the organization’s Readings & Workshops mini-grant program, which has provided fees to writers for over fifty years.

Jamie Asaye FitzGerald, who is Director of the California Office and Readings & Workshops (West) for Poets & Writers, says, “As an organization with a mission to foster the professional development of poets and writers, to promote communication throughout the literary community, and to help create an environment in which literature can be appreciated by the widest possible public, Poets & Writers is a proud supporter of WeHo Reads events.”

Other pillars of the local literary community are providing in-kind support. The Los Angeles Review of Books, which publishes book reviews and essays and organizes an annual publishing workshop that helped inspire Sisco to pursue his ideas for BookSwell, is sharing information about the events with their audience. LARB Executive Director Irene Yoon says, “LARB is dedicated to fostering vibrant literary conversations in our pages and local community alike. We’re thrilled to support the WeHo Reads series.”

Booksellers are also partnering with BookSwell. Book Soup, a local independent bookstore in West Hollywood, is making copies of participating writers’ books available both for in-store shopping and online. And Bookshop.org, an online bookstore that launched during the pandemic to support independent bookstores across the country, is a media partner as well.

The next WeHo Reads event is Expansive Vistas and Hidden Corners on Tuesday, September 20, 2022, at 6 p.m. Artists and writers explore concepts of places, how they’re made, and how we understand, remember, and memorialize them. Lynell George is a journalist and essayist based in Los Angeles, who tells the city’s story one sentence at a time. Her book, After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the Frame (Angel City Press 2018), is an exploration of the city in text and photography, and she explores the extraordinary creative life of Octavia E. Butler in A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky, published by Angel City Press in 2020. She will be in discussion with Marisela Norte, an American writer, poet, and artist living in Los Angeles and known for poetry that explores the unseen city, including her poetry collection Peeping Tom Tom Girl (Sunbelt Publications 2008). Together, they will explore hidden corners of Los Angeles and the poetry of the city in images and text.

Online events are streamed on the City of West Hollywood’s WeHo Arts YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/wehoarts. Members of the public can RSVP and be sent a direct link to view the event by visiting the WeHo Reads webpage on the City’s website at www.weho.org/wehoreads. All events are free to attend and take place on at 6 p.m., Pacific Time

BookSwell is a literary events and media production company dedicated to connecting readers and writers in Southern California and beyond. Through events, media, and partnerships, BookSwell makes the book scene easier to navigate, introduces readers to new writing, and weaves together digital and real-life literary experiences. BookSwell was founded in 2017 by Cody Sisco with a mission to amplify the voices of Black writers, Indigenous writers, and writers of color alongside LGBTQ+, female, nonbinary, and indie writers.

For more information about the Road to Joy series, please contact Cody Sisco, Executive Editor of BookSwell, at +1-213-652-9032 or at contact@bookswell.club.

WeHo Reads Returns for an Inspiring Fall 2022 Season

We’re back! After a summer hiatus, BookSwell returns with three events on the ROAD TO JOY!


9/20 WeHo Reads: Expansive Vistas and Hidden Corners

The next WeHo Reads event is Expansive Vistas and Hidden Corners on Tuesday, September 20, 2022, at 6 p.m. Artists and writers explore concepts of places, how they’re made, and how we understand, remember, and memorialize them.

Lynell George is a journalist and essayist based in Los Angeles, who tells the city’s story one sentence at a time. Her book, After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the Frame (Angel City Press 2018), is an exploration of the city in text and photography, and she explores the extraordinary creative life of Octavia E. Butler in A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky, published by Angel City Press in 2020. She will be in discussion with Marisela Norte, an American writer, poet, and artist living in Los Angeles and known for poetry that explores the unseen city, including her poetry collection Peeping Tom Tom Girl (Sunbelt Publications 2008). Together, they will explore hidden corners of Los Angeles and the poetry of the city in images and text.


10/5 WeHo Reads: Poets Laureate Across America

There will also be a special October 2022 event featuring a selection of poets from the Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship Program. These poets laureate were all chosen by the Academy to receive a $50,000 award to help support creative work and community engagement projects, and several of them will gather to share about the projects they created.

WeHo Reads: Poets Laureate Across America takes place on Wednesday, October 5, 2022, at 6 p.m.  In 2020, the Academy of American Poets awarded more than $1 million to 23 poets laureate as part of a year-long Fellowship to support their creative and organizing work. One of these awards went to City of West Hollywood City Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace who also serves as this event’s host. This reading brings together a group of these Fellows from across the country in the aftermath of their Fellowships to share what they did, read their writing, and reflect on the state of poetry across the United States.


11/15 WeHo Reads: Light in Our Hearts

Light in Our Hearts concludes the 2022 WeHo Reads season on Tuesday, November 15, 2022, at 6 p.m. 

The culminating event in the series will bring together poets, writers, and artists who live and create at the intersection of joy and hope and reckoning with pain. bridgette bianca is a poet and educator from South Central Los Angeles. Her debut book of poetry, be/trouble, is a powerful love letter to oft-overlooked Los Angeles, one that offers as much danger as it does glamour and as much grit as beauty. traci kato-kiriyama is a multi-disciplinary artist, writer/author, actor, arts educator & community organizer. Her recently published book from Writ Large Press, Navigating With(out) Instruments, is a collection of poetics, micro essays, and notes to self (and other)—a journey of several years, navigating through death moments, past/present tensions of war and violence, trauma and ideation, excavation, and memory. Cassandra Lane is a writer and editor based in Los Angeles. Her first book, WE ARE BRIDGES: A Memoir, weaves personal and historical geographies, lineages, upbringings, and upheavals into a complete tapestry, validating her glorious existence as a Black mother. There will also be closing remarks from series opener Shonda Buchanan.

Watch the replay of WeHo Reads: Pride & Joy in the Matrix

We looked for joy in online spaces with Isle McElroy, Patrick Nathan, and Reuben “Tihi” Hayslett and guided writing with Amy Spies.

About WeHo Reads: Pride & Joy in the Matrix

LGBTQ+ authors are taking a hard look at society IRL and virtually, pinpointing the ways we come up short in connecting with and loving each other. Patrick Nathan examines the culture of fascistic images that pervade the online media landscape in his book Image Control (Counterpoint Press 2021). Reuben “Tihi” Hayslett uses short fiction, including his volume of short stories Dark Corners (Running Wild Press 2019), to illuminate the ways we can be marginalized as well as how we can fight back and lose some virtue in the process. Isle McElroy writes about diet culture, masculinity, nonbinary identity, basketball, scammers, books, and body dysmorphia. Their debut novel, The Atmospherians, was published in 2021 (Atria Books). Together, they’ll discuss online spaces, the challenges of creating joy online—is it even possible?—and the role of critique and creativity in shifting culture. A moment of guided meditation and mindful writing will be led by Amy Spies, a writer and teacher in the film, television, and new media industries.

WeHo Reads is a literary series presented by the City of West Hollywood. More information and events at www.weho.org/wehoreads. BookSwell, a literary events and media company dedicated to lifting up writers from historically excluded communities, is producing the WeHo Reads 2022 season. Additional support is provided by UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and Poets & Writers as well as media partnerships with Bookshop.org, Book Soup, and Los Angeles Review of Books.