Tag: Fiction

Horror author Eric LaRocca in conversation with Brian Evenson

Two authors. One Stage. The release of We Turn Gruesome at Night. Join us for an evening of horror, fantasy, and splatterpunk!

Join us for a conversation between two horror masters Eric LaRocca and Brian Evenson, for the release of the second installment of the nightmarish queer horror Burnt Sparrow Trilogy, We Turn Gruesome at Night, by Eric LaRocca.

Friday, Sep 11 — 6-8pm

at the Last Bookstore downtown

453 S Spring St – Ground Floor

Los Angeles, CA 90013

Attendance is free, but reserve a seat for $10, a seat and signed hardcover for $32, or a seat and signed book bundle of LaRocca’s hardcovers or softcovers (limited # available).

Eric LaRocca (he/they) is a 3x Bram Stoker Award® finalist and Splatterpunk Award winner. He was named by Esquire as one of the “Writers Shaping Horror’s Next Golden Age” and praised by Locus as “one of the strongest and most unique voices in contemporary horror fiction.” LaRocca’s notable works include Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, Everything the Darkness Eats, and At Dark, I Become Loathsome. He currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts, with his partner.

Brian Evenson is the author of two dozen books of fiction, most recently the story collection Good Night, Sleep Tight. His collection Song for the Unraveling of the World won the Shirley Jackson Award and the World Fantasy Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times’ Ray Bradbury Prize. His novel Last Days won the ALA-RUSA award for Best Horror Novel. He is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes, an NEA fellowship, and a Guggenheim Award. His work has been translated into two dozen languages. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches at the California Institute of the Arts. A new novel, Phantom Limb, will be published in October of 2026.

Romantasy author panel with Callie Hart, Holly Black, & Sarah Rees Brennan

We’re hosting a romantasy book event in LA with authors Callie Hart, Holly Black & Sarah Rees Brennan on August 26th at 7pm.

The conversation will be moderated by Maude Garrett, founder of Maude’s Book Club.

Tickets include a $25 store credit towards purchasing pre-signed books from all three of our romantasy authors.

Callie Hart: Quicksilver, Brimstone

Holly Black: The Cruel Prince, Book of Night, Thief of Night

Sarah Rees Brennan: Long Live Evil, All Hail Chaos, Tell the Wind & Fire

There will be an extended fan Q&A. Don’t forget to submit questions when purchasing your ticket.

Accessibility details and our event FAQ can be found here.

About Callie Hart:

Callie Hart is the#1 New York Times bestselling author of the international phenomenon QUICKSILVER, along with many other bestselling dark romance and dark academia titles. A British expat now living in California, Callie can most likely be found sequestered away in the corner of a library, fantasizing about exciting new realms and the brooding anti-heroes who occupy them.

About Holly Black:

Holly Black is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of fantasy books, including the Novels of Elfhame, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, the Spiderwick Chronicles, her adult debut, Book of Night, as well as an Arthurian picture book called Sir Morien. She has been a finalist for an Eisner Award and the Lodestar Award, and the recipient of the Mythopoeic Award, a Nebula, and a Newbery Honor. Her books have been translated into 32 languages worldwide and adapted for film. She currently lives in New England with her husband and son in a house with a secret library. You can follow her on Instagram @blackholly

About Sarah Rees Brennan:

Sarah Rees Brennan was born and raised in Ireland by the sea, where her teachers valiantly tried to make her fluent in Irish (she wants you to know it’s not called Gaelic) but she chose to read books under her desk in class instead. After living in London, New York and Australia, she now uses Ireland as a base for her adventures. She is the author of The Demon’s Lexicon and Lynburn Legacy series, standalones Tell the Wind and Fire, In Other Lands, and several collaborations with other writers such as Cassandra Clare, Maureen Johnson and Kelly Link. Her books have been long-listed for the Carnegie Medal, shortlisted for a Nebula Award, and received multiple starred reviews.

About Maude Garrett:

Maude Garrett is a multi-talented media personality and content creator based in Los Angeles, California. She is the Founder and Content Director of Maude’s Book Club, a sci-fi/fantasy book club that aims to make reading fun and exciting for its community.

Author Talk with Devi S. Laskar and Simona Supekar

Join us as Devi S. Laskar discusses her latest novel, Midnight, at the War in converations with Simona Supekar

Good to know

Highlights

2 hours

In person

Refund Policy

Refunds up to 7 days before event

Literary Fiction Book Launch: Grand Tour by Aatif Rashid

Aatif Rashid debuts his new novel at Village Well.

Join us for the launch of Aatif Rashid’s new novel Grand Tour!

Aatif will conduct a reading and Q&A and discuss the inspiration behind this probing work.

About the author:

Aatif Rashid is the author of the novels Portrait of Sebastian Khan (2019) and Grand Tour (forthcoming 2026). His short stories have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Metaphorosis, Arcturus, Barrelhouse, Triangle House Review, X-R-A-Y, Maudlin House, The Ex-Puritan, Pithead Chapel, and The Adroit Journal, as well as the anthologies New Moons: Contemporary Writing by North American Muslims (2021), Made in L.A. Volume 4 (2022), and Narrating Pakistan: An Anthology of Contemporary Creative Writing (2023). He’s also published nonfiction in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Lit Hub, and Alta and he wrote regularly for The Kenyon Review blog from 2018 to 2021. He teaches creative writing classes through the UCLA Extension Writers program.

About the book:

“In the summer of 2012, when I was twenty-three, I bought the cheapest one-way ticket to continental Europe that I could find.”

From Aatif Rashid, author of Foreword Indies Winner Portrait of Sebastian Khan, comes a new novel about youth set in the now-nostalgic world of European backpacker hostels. Art history student Amir Rahim, unhappy with his life and uncertain about his future, decides to spend two months traveling Europe. What follows is an odyssey of pleasure seeking and self-discovery, with Amir drifting from city to city, staying at youth hostels and cheap hotels, going to museums and cafes, drinking at bars, hooking up with strangers, and meeting others as lost as he is. Ultimately, as he struggles with his own sense of purpose and what he feels is the profound ugliness of the modern world, Amir finds himself asking the age-old burning question: how does one live a meaningful life?

Poetry & The Archive: Creating Poetry from Photographs

Poetry & The Archive: A Workshop on Creating Poetry from Photographs

Poetry & The Archive: Creating Poetry from Photographs is a generative workshop on the use of photographs from historical (and personal) archives to create poetry.

Participants will generate new work through a series of prompts and be invited to use their own photographs to create new (or revise existing) poems.

This workshop is drawn from previous archive-related workshops the author has facilitated, her personal work using archives for two poetry collections-in-progress and forthcoming chapbook (Akashic Books/Africa Poetry Book Fund, 2027) and research into the use and power of photography in telling a story. Example poets to be discussed in workshop include Patricia Smith, Caleb Femi, Gordon Parks, and photographs from Russell Lee, US government archives, and others.

This workshop supports writers of all stages.

Participants are required to bring a writing device of preference (Personal Notebook / Journal / Sketch Pad / Pen / Pencil / Markers / Crayons) and photographs to use during the workshop.

About the author

.CHISARAOKWU., MD (she/her) is an Igbo transdisciplinary poet artist and scholar. Her practice weaves archive, collage, film, and her experiences as a physician to explore memory and identity in the African diaspora. Her poetry and visual art has been featured in Michigan Quarterly Review, ANMLY, Beloit Poetry Journal, Transition and Obsidian, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of Net, and Best New American Poets. Her chapbook “This Wake Holding, Mmiri” received the 2023 Evaristo Poetry Prize’s Honorable Mention from the Africa Poetry Book Fund. She’s a been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, Cave Canem, Anaphora Arts, The Poetry Foundation, Torch Literary Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, and Ucross. From 2010-2017, she served as a US Commissioner to UNESCO. She is currently working on two poetry collections and a novel.

About Beyond Baroque

Beyond Baroque is one of the United States’ leading independent Literary | Arts Centers and public spaces dedicated to expanding the public’s knowledge of poetry, literature and art through cultural events and community interaction. Founded in 1968 as an experimental literary magazine, Beyond Baroque is based out of the original City Hall building in Venice, California. The Center offers a diverse variety of literary and arts programming including readings and workshops. The building also houses a bookstore with a large collection of new poetry books for sale.

Ticket purchase is required. Tickets will be available at the Beyond Baroque bookstore on the day of the workshop, but we recommend registering in advance through Eventbrite. Masks are encouraged while inside our center. Please arrive early.

Workshop attendees are expected to behave in a respectful and considerate manner while in our space. Beyond Baroque reserves the right to remove individuals from our workshops, virtual or otherwise, if they are not respecting the space, staff, fellow attendees, or performers.