Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026 | 6:30–8 p.m. (PT)
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.
Learn more at marcus-clayton.com.
¡PÓNK!
Joshua Escobar
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.
Find them on Instagram @djashtrae17.
Demons of Eminence
Rasheed Newson
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.
Learn more at rasheednewson.com.
There’s Only One Sin in Hollywood
Kaila Yu
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.
Find her on Instagram @kailayu.
Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty
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