Wednesday, October 8, 2025 | 6:30–8 p.m. (PT)
To achieve transformation, we must first imagine it.
WeHo Reads: Voices of Transformation
Wednesday, October 8, 2025 | 6:30–8 p.m. (PT)
In Person: West Hollywood Library Community Room, 625 N San Vicente Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069
Free, RSVP Requested
The fall season of WeHo Reads 2025 begins with four authors summoning their powers of creativity and advocacy. The participating writers delight in showing readers expansive visions of life, death, and all the sublime and horrific moments in between.
This event brings together poets and authors with queer and marginalized perspectives on the transformative power of literature. Featuring:
- Carlos Allende, educator and author of Coffee, Shopping, Murder, Love and Love, or the Witches of Windward Circle;
- Gina Rae Duran, interdisciplinary artist, trauma informed educator, and editor of The White Picket Fence: Stories of Individuality as Rebelliousness anthology, forthcoming FlowerSong Press;
- Myriam Gurba, activist and author of several books including Poppy State: A Labyrinth of Plants and a Story of Beginnings; and
- Dan López, editor and author of The Show House, named a Best Book of 2016 by Chicago Review of Books, and Part the Hawser, Limn the Sea.
West Hollywood City Poet Laureate Jen Cheng will open the event with the reading of a poem.
The event is free. WeHo Reads is a literary series presented by the City of West Hollywood. For more information and events, visit www.weho.org/wehoreads. The 2025 season 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.
RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/weho-reads-voices-of-transformation-tickets-1636259870319?aff=bsweb
Authors
Carlos Allende
Carlos Allende is a media psychologist and author of dark comedy and social satire. He teaches The Psychology of Compelling Storytelling at UCLA Extension. His novel Coffee, Shopping, Murder, Love won the 2019 Quill Prose Award. Originally from Mexico City, he lives in Santa Monica with his husband.
More information: https://witchesandbeatniks.com/
Gina Rae Duran
Gina Rae Duran is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and founder of the IE Hope Collective; an outreach which provides poetry, art, and yoga for self-care workshops for low-income, homeless, foster, refugee, special needs, and LGBTQ2S+ youth. She is the editor of the anthology The White Picket Fence: Stories of Individuality as Rebelliousness, forthcoming FlowerSong Press and her debut collection of poetry “…and so, the Wind was Born,” published by FlowerSong Press (2021) can be found in wherever books are sold online. Duran is also the Host for The Collective on KQBH.
To learn more about Gina, visit her website: byginaduran.org
Myriam Gurba
Myriam Gurba is a writer and activist. Her first book, the short story collection Dahlia Season, won the Edmund White Award for debut fiction. O, the Oprah Magazine, ranked her true crime memoir Mean as one of the best LGBTQ books of all time. Creep, her most recent book, was a finalist for a National Book Critics’ Circle award in criticism, and won the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Vox, and Paris Review have published her work. She is a co-founder of Dignidad Literaria, a grassroots organization committed to combating racism in the book world.
To learn more about Myriam, visit her website: https://www.myriamgurba.com/
Dan López
Dan López is the author of The Show House, named a Best Book of 2016 by Chicago Review of Books, and Part the Hawser, Limn the Sea, a Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Debut Fiction. His work has most recently appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, GOOD Magazine, and Lambda Literary. He lives in Los Angeles and is an associate editor at Counterpoint Press.
Photo credit: Eric Newman
Special Guest: West Hollywood Poet Laureate
Jen Cheng
Jen Cheng is a multi-disciplinary storyteller, weaving her skills as a poet, writer, musician, improvisor, and artist. She helps create your story and amplify under-represented stories. Jen is a community curator and cross-pollinator.
