Tag: Politics

Writers Bloc & LARB Present Naomi Klein, Astra Taylor and Robin D.G. Kelley

Writers Bloc & LARB present Naomi Klein, Astra Taylor and Robin D.G. Kelley

What do the religious right, big tech, and end-times survivalists, have in common? What could possibly link these three strange bedfellows, these components of American politics?

Leading writers on political trends, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor explore the common threads of end-timers who see apocalyptic doom all around them. In their new book, End Times Fascism, Klein and Taylor show how ultra rich survivalists wield political power and lay waste to the environment–at the cost of humanity.

Klein and Taylor want to create a movement with momentum. They have solutions for fighting back–from protesting the energy suck of massive data centers to organizing as communities, as did Minneapolis, to protect our cities from destructive forces.

Klein and Taylor are not only optimistic, they’re adamant in their belief that the planet– and the future– is ours to save.

Naomi Klein is the internationally renowned bestselling author of such books as The Shock Doctrine, and Doppelganger.

Astra Taylor is a writer, activist, and documentarian and the author of The People’s Platform, which won the American Book Award, and Democracy May Not Exist But We’ll Miss It When It is Gone.

In conversation with Robin D.G. Kelley, widely acclaimed for his work on African American history, culture, and politics. He is the Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at UCLA. His books include, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original; Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination; and Making a Killing: Capitalism, Cops, and the War on Black Life (forthcoming 2027). His essays have appeared in The Nation, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Hammer & Hope, Black Scholar, Journal of American History; and Boston Review, for which he is a contributing editor.

Sponsored by LAist.

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No refunds or exchanges on tickets or books. Books must be picked up on the night of the program. Tickets are strictly non-transferable; do not buy tickets from any resale sites or external vendors.

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

BOOK SIGNING: The Cost of Healing in Silence w/ Ashley McGirt-Adair

Join Rep Club for a meet + greet for ‘The Cost of Healing in Silence’ by author Ashley McGirt-Adair

WHO & WHAT: A signing & meet and greet with Ashley McGirt-Adair, author of The Cost of Healing in Silence: Navigating Racial Trauma and The Call for Culturally Responsive Care.

WHEN: Doors at 12:00pm – 2pm

WHERE: Reparations Club, 3054 S. Victoria Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90016

HOW:

TICKET w/ BOOK: This ticket guarantees a spot in the signing line and includes a signed book available for pick up at the event.

PLEASE NOTE:

Must purchase the book from Reparations to enter the signing line

SIGNED BOOK ONLY: Can’t make it IRL but still want a signed copy? Order directly from our site!

Please email us at questions@reparations.club if you have any additional needs, questions, or accessibility concerns.

About the Book:

AN UP-TO-DATE AND EXPERT DISCUSSION OF HOW TO CREATE A MORE CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE MENTAL HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

In The Cost of Healing in Silence: Navigating Racial Trauma and the Call for Culturally Responsive Care, veteran psychotherapist and trauma specialist Ashley McGirt-Adair delivers an effective roadmap for culturally responsive mental health care that acknowledges, understands, and begins to heal the ways racial bias and stereotypes infiltrate counseling. Blending contemporary research, practical tools, and searing personal stories, McGirt-Adair offers both a personal narrative and a comprehensive guide to more equitable mental health care.

The Cost of Healing in Silence offers techniques for culturally responsive care that demonstrates how mental health care can be improved by offering therapy that is reflective of and sensitive to a range of identities. McGirt-Adair helps readers uncover the impacts of racial trauma and navigate the scars it leaves behind, offering culturally attuned techniques for healing and restoration that honor identity and community.

You’ll also find:

Actionable guidance for recognizing and addressing racial bias in therapeutic settings

Inspiring amplifications of marginalized voices, including those whose pain has often been overlooked and dismissed

Strategies for improving access to Black therapists and implementing changes that prioritize cultural responsive care

Perfect for people of color who have faced discrimination, bias, or unequal treatment in healthcare settings and are seeking guidance on how to heal from these experiences, The Cost of Healing in Silence is also a must-read for healthcare professionals, educators and allies committed to transforming healthcare into a more equitable system.

ASHLEY MCGIRT- ADAIR, MSW, LICSW, (SPRING VALLEY, CA) is a psychotherapist and founder of the WA Therapy Fund Foundation ( She is also a leading speaker on racial trauma and healthcare, whose core mission is to eliminate barriers to mental health and improving mental health outcomes, especially for Black people and other historically marginalized communities. Her speaking and consulting clients that include Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, the Seattle Seahawks, Seattle Public Schools, Yale University, Pierce College, Comcast, and more. Ashley has been featured in Forbes, The Seattle Times, MSNBC, OWN, Bravo, and more. She earned her master’s in social work from the University of Washington and her bachelor of science in psychology.

Refund Policy: At Rep Club, we are committed to providing a valuable experience for all attendees. However, we understand sometimes plans change. Below is our refund policy for ticket purchases:

Refund Eligibility: Requests for refunds must be made no later than 14 calendar days prior to the event date via Eventbrite only.

– After this deadline, no refunds will be issued, except under extraordinary circumstances (see “Force Majeure” below).

– Refunds will only be issued to the original purchaser via the original method of payment (i.e. Eventbrite).

Non-Refundable Items: Processing fees and service charges are non-refundable, unless the event is canceled by the organizer (i.e. Rep Club).

Event Cancellation or Rescheduling

– If the event is canceled by the organizer, a full refund will be issued to all ticket holders, including any fees paid.

– If the event is rescheduled, your ticket will automatically be valid for the new date. If you are unable to attend the rescheduled date, a refund request can be made within 7 calendar days of the rescheduling notice.

No-Show Policy If you do not attend the event and have not contacted us by the refund deadline, unfortunately no refund will be issued.

Contact Us If you have any questions regarding this refund policy, please contact us at questions@reparations.club.

BOOK LAUNCH: This Is How You Love Her w/ Traci Saulsberry & Jeanell English

Join Rep Club for a discussion on ‘This Is How You Love Her ‘ by author Traci Saulsberry in conversation with Jeanell English

WHO & WHAT: Join Rep Club for a discussion on ‘This Is How You Love Her: A Journey To Radical Self-Love’ by author Traci Saulsberry in conversation with Jeanell English.

WHEN: Doors at 6:30pm, event promptly at 7pm.

WHERE: Reparations Club, 3054 S. Victoria Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90016

HOW:

TICKET w/ BOOK: This ticket guarantees a seat including a signed book available for pick up at the event.

FREE RSVP (No Book Included): This Free RSVP DOES NOT include a copy of the book and entry is based strictly on capacity at the door. Books may be available for purchase in-store.

SIGNED BOOK ONLY: Can’t make it IRL but still want a signed copy? Order directly from our site!

Please email us at questions@reparations.club if you have any additional needs, questions, or accessibility concerns.

About the Book:

A FIERCELY CANDID, FUNNY, AND SOMETIMES HEARTBREAKING BLEND OF MEMOIR AND SELF-HELP ON VULNERABILITY, IDENTITY, AND RECLAIMING YOUR LIFE

What if you didn’t need Bali to find yourself? For 14 years, Traci Saulsberry led communications at NBC, becoming one of the youngest Black executives at the company. She had everything a modern woman is told to want–the house, her son, the high-powered job. But when her carefully constructed life collapsed, Saulsberry was confronted with a question she’d been avoiding for years: Who was she, really?

Here I was, caught on my heels, with no backup lover to pick up the slack. Naturally, because I am a product of an adolescence spent binging rom-coms filled with sweeping tales, I wanted to run away and leave it all behind. I romanticized that there must be a flight to the farthest island on the edge of the world where I could just start over again. My archnemesis, reality, quickly snapped me out of that daydream. I wasn’t going anywhere. I felt trapped.

This Is How You Love Her is a vulnerable narrative guide to uncovering your identity in life’s small moments, right where you are. With wit and insight, heart and cinematic prose, Saulsberry weaves together pages from her journal, conversational guides, poetry, and reflection prompts in this memoir-meets-guide that gives readers permission to get to know themselves at their own pace.

For anyone who’s ever lost themselves in work, relationships, or the image they built to survive–this is your roadmap home.

And this is how you love her.

Perfect for fans of memoirs, self-help, and journaling, this book explores:

Perfection: Unlearning the belief that you’re not allowed to get it wrong

Body Autonomy: Reclaiming your body and learning to be present in your own skin

Boundaries: Setting limits with the people you love most, even when it means risking the relationship

Control: Releasing the need to manage everyone’s perception and trusting yourself to just be

TRACI SAULSBERRY is a senior communications executive, leadership coach, and writer. At twenty-seven, she became one of the youngest Black executives at NBC, where she spent fourteen years shaping narratives at the highest levels of entertainment. She later built and led the communications team at Peacock, managing a team of more than thirty people during the platform’s launch and growth.

She is currently a host and narrator for Calm, the world’s leading meditation and sleep app, where she guides original series including Workplace Wellbeing, Professional Growth, and Processing World Events, designed to help audiences navigate life with clarity and care.

As a leadership coach, keynote speaker, and learning facilitator, Saulsberry works with early-career professionals, executives, and business owners, with a focus on helping individuals find and own their voice–particularly while navigating spaces where they are underrepresented. She also serves as an adjunct professor at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, where she teaches entertainment publicity.

JEANELL ENGLISH is a seasoned entertainment executive with over a decade of experience in diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI), learning and development, and production management. She’s dedicated to continuous learning and growth through cultural immersion having spent seven years living and working across Europe and Asia.

As the former EVP, Impact and Inclusion at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Jeanell led global initiatives designed to address underrepresentation across the industry and to discover, empower, and advance the work of emerging and diverse film artists. Prior to her role at the Academy, she worked for Warner Bros. Discovery for eight years where her contributions included the successful delivery of the broadcaster’s first coverage of the Olympic Games to European markets in 2018.

Driven by her belief in the power of storytelling, Jeanell co-founded Elizabeth & Minnie Publishing to foster a more accessible and inclusive entertainment industry, recognizing books as the foundation.

A graduate of Cornell University (BSc) and the University of Maryland Smith School of Business (MBA), she was recognized as a ‘New Leader in Hollywood’ by Variety in 2022.

Refund Policy: At Rep Club, we are committed to providing a valuable experience for all attendees. However, we understand sometimes plans change. Below is our refund policy for ticket purchases:

Refund Eligibility: Requests for refunds must be made no later than 14 calendar days prior to the event date via Eventbrite only.

Historical Fiction Book Launch: Song for Another Home by Bora Lee Reed

Bora Lee Reed presents her new novel in conversation with Tracey Gee.

Join us for the launch for Bora Lee Reed’s new novel, Song for Another Home!

Bora will be joined by author Tracey Gee for a conversation on Korean history, family ties, and generational memory.

About the participants:

Bora Lee Reed was born in Seoul, South Korea, and immigrated to the US as a young child. She grew up in Southern California among a vibrant Korean immigrant community. She holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and has been awarded residences from Hedgebrook, Ragdale, and Ucross. Bora now lives in Berkeley, CA, where she works as the director of communications for UC Berkeley’s public policy school.

Tracey Gee is a certified leadership coach and consultant who is passionate about helping others lead with authenticity and self-trust. She is the author of The Magic of Knowing What You Want in which she invites readers to honor their desires and redefine success on their own terms. Raised in the Bay Area of California and now based in Los Angeles, Tracey is always up for talking coffee shops or dog stories.

About the book:

Pachinko meets Homegoing in this powerful story of family separation and reunion amid love and war from a Reese’s Book Club LitUp fellow.

When news hits in 1950 that the Americans have entered the war between North and South Korea, Oksoon and her family believe the conflict will soon end. But then China joins the war, and they decide to flee their home in Pyongyang despite the freezing temperatures and lack of food. Journeying from the barren, war-torn streets of the North in the winter to the seedy back alleys of the South Korean capital of Seoul in the summer, the family falls in with an unlikely group of miscreants.

Meanwhile, far to the south, Oksoon’s cousin Junho seeks refuge at an orphanage for abandoned children. As the institution struggles to keep its doors open, Junho, with his elementary command of English, is tasked with drafting letters to American missionaries and benefactors to ask for money. When the enigmatic director brings her aristocratic niece to the orphanage, Junho finds himself caught between his impulse for survival and his growing affections for the young woman, even though his feelings put him at risk of being expelled from the only safe place he knows.

Movingly rendered, Song for Another Home highlights the power of resilience, the tension between personal dreams and duty to family, and how choices made in a brief moment have consequences that reverberate across time and through generations.