The Los Feliz Writers Festival returns for its second year on Wednesday, Aug. 19 through Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026, with 14 events staged across bars, diners, taco stands, a park, and a street corner in Los Feliz. Every single one is free.
A neighborhood celebrates
“The mission of this festival is to celebrate, empower, and engage writers that live, work, and play in Los Feliz!”
Co-directors Sammy Ginsberg and D.W. Socha met at Skylight Books’ Coyotes Book Club and through Los Feliz Neighborhood Council committees, and started the festival in 2025 with a specific idea of what they were representing. In their own words from last year’s press release, they “wanted to organize a festival that represented what they think of as Los Feliz- fun, creative, and a little weird.”
Why we’re highlighting it
BookSwell exists to amplify Black, Indigenous, and writers of color alongside LGBTQ+, female, nonbinary, and indie writers, so we look closely at whether a festival’s inclusion is structural or decorative. Los Feliz built theirs into the schedule.
Two of the 14 events are explicitly about who gets heard. Local POC Voices (Sun., Aug. 23) gathers four writers of color, Laura Sermeño, Joshua-John Judah Ivory, Ten-Headed Skeleton, and Jacqueline Vitela, for performances and a conversation the organizers describe this way:
“Together, the panel will explore the ways in which POC writers are currently silenced, historical context, and how to make change.”
And the Anti-Racist Workshop, A Fishbowl Demo (Sun., Aug. 23) is a live teaching demonstration led by Shannon Cain, an O. Henry Prize, Pushcart, and Drue Heinz winner and NEA fellow, informed by Felicia Rose Chavez’s The Anti-Racist Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom. The festival’s description:
“Set up fishbowl style with four writers and their facilitator at the center, this session will demonstrate an updated creative writing pedagogy that rejects the traditional model for one that nurtures and champions a diversity of voices.”
We’re excited about inclusion at the festival, including these featured writers:
- CD Eskilson, a trans nonbinary poet and translator whose debut Scream / Queen is out from Acre Books
- Karla Lamb (she/ella), “a Queer Xicana poet born in Mexico City” who hosts Verse4Verse, a monthly Sapphic and Queer-expansive poetry night in East Hollywood
- lenny love, Jr., an African American filmmaker, actor, and poet who “explores the complexities of Black identity.”
- Isabella Bellezza, who describes herself as “a bicyclist and a trans woman and a scientist.”
The presses in the mix are independent and fierce: Write Bloody, Acre Books, Sunflower Station Press, Pelekinesis, FlowerSong Press, and Riot of Roses, alongside a stack of self-published zines.
Los Feliz also now has a poet laureate. The Los Feliz Neighborhood Council, in partnership with the festival, appointed Derrick C. Brown, president of Write Bloody Publishing, the indie poetry press behind Andrea Gibson, Sarah Kay, and Clint Smith, as the neighborhood’s first. His case for why any of this matters:
“Poetry is more essential now than ever. We are in a deepening valley of loneliness. In an age of information overload and superficial connections, poetry teaches us to slow down, to truly listen, and to feel deeply. It’s resistance against a culture that values speed and cash over substance. Poetry builds empathy, and hot damn, do we need more of that.”
Schedule
| When | Event | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Wed., Aug. 19, 6:45–9 p.m. | Opening Party: Shut Up and Write in Los Feliz, with a welcome from LA Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace | Big Bar Alcove |
| Thu., Aug. 20, 7–8:30 p.m. | Personal Essay Writing Workshop with Tracy Chabala | Fred 62 |
| Fri., Aug. 21, 8–10 p.m. | Poets Are the New Pop Stars | TBA |
| Sat., Aug. 22, 10–11:30 a.m. | Fall in Love With Your Own Voice with Aubrey Mayne | TBA |
| Sat., Aug. 22, 12–1:30 p.m. | Sensory Portal: Writing Through Taste & Scent with Tayi Sanusi | TBA |
| Sat., Aug. 22, 2–3:30 p.m. | Tarot for Writers with Willa | TBA |
| Sat., Aug. 22, 4–5:30 p.m. | Writing With Audio with William J. Meyer | Fred 62 |
| Sat., Aug. 22, 6:30–9 p.m. | Voices of Los Feliz, Radically Human zine launch, 30+ writers and artists | Barnsdall Art Park |
| Sat., Aug. 22, 9:30 p.m.–12:30 a.m. | After-Party (Ginsberg / O’Hara / Harper Lee centennial) | Tabula Rasa |
| Sun., Aug. 23, 10–11:30 a.m. | Anti-Racist Workshop, A Fishbowl Demo with Shannon Cain | TBA |
| Sun., Aug. 23, 12–1:30 p.m. | Local POC Voices, Sermeño, Ivory, Ten-Headed Skeleton, Vitela | TBA |
| Sun., Aug. 23, 2–3:30 p.m. | Writer and Activist Mixer with Nicole Levin | Best Fish Taco |
| Sun., Aug. 23, afternoon | PorchFest Open Mic | Vermont Triangle |
| Sun., Aug. 23, 6–7:45 p.m. | The Story of You: Journaling Stroll & Integration with Laura Fuller | Barnsdall Art Park |
Six venues were still TBA at the time of writing. Check the festival’s RSVP pages for updates.
The centerpiece is arguably Saturday night. Voices of Los Feliz launches Radically Human, a zine featuring over 30 writers and artists, being printed and distributed around the neighborhood, with a reading under the stars at Barnsdall Art Park:
“Bring a picnic, a blanket, and friends, and come meet under the stars at the beautiful Barnsdall Art Park and meet the local writers who live in Los Feliz as they read from our zine.”
And the festival closes the way it should, with an open mic at Vermont Triangle:
“This is an open mic, feel free to bring your first drafts, your free writes, your work-in-progresses! This is about sharing your voice and is not a polished performance.”
Need to know
Everything is free. RSVPs are handled through Partiful, event by event: partiful.com/e/3fXb8NoigxCSHMPsdvtD. Several workshops are capped, so RSVP early for anything that’s calling you.
The reason it’s free is that local businesses are donating their rooms. The organizers ask one thing:
“Please support the local business hosting us by purchasing something as that’s why our event is FREE <3”
Buy the coffee. Order the tacos. That’s the whole economic model.
The festival is run by volunteers with support from the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council and, last year, 23 local organizations. If you have questions, the co-directors read their own email: seeliterarypixie@gmail.com. Follow along at @losfelizwriters and losfelizlitfest.org.
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