City of West Hollywood’s 2026 ‘WeHo Reads’ Series Launches with Two Events featuring Women Writers

The City of West Hollywood is launching its free 2026 WeHo Reads literary series with two events featuring groups of diverse women writers.

The series opener WeHo Reads: Telling Family Secrets will take place on Wednesday, February 18, 2026, from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. online. This event will feature four dynamic writers who will explore how telling family secrets can be a powerful and vulnerable creative act. Questions explored will include: What happens when writers dare to expose their family secrets through stories and memoirs? What are the consequences of silence and of speaking up?

Participating writers will include: Toni Ann Johnson, author of the Arrington family saga, which includes her novella Homegoing, the Flannery O'Connor Award-winning Light Skin Gone to Waste, and her newest linked collection, winner of the Screen Door Press Prize, But Where's Home?; Aimee Liu, bestselling author of the novels Glorious Boy, Flash House, Cloud Mountain, and Face, as well as the memoirs Solitaire and Gaining; Juanita E. Mantz (JEM), author of the memoir Tales of an Inland Empire Girl, who is also a lawyer/deputy public defender, a performer, and the host of the Life of JEM podcast; and Hannah Sward, award-winning author of Strip: A Memoir whose work has appeared in publications such as the Los Angeles Times, HuffPost, and The New York Times.

The second event of 2026, Writing Together: Pomodoros, Marinara, and Friendship, will take place on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. online. Writing a book is often imagined as a solitary act: thousands of quiet hours, alone with a blinking cursor. But for five friends - Jade Chang, Angela Flournoy, Aja Gabel, Jean Chen Ho, and Xuan Juliana Wang - that myth unraveled in a corner booth at Little Dom's, an Italian American restaurant in Los Feliz where they gathered week after week to write together.

Using an adapted Pomodoro method - 40-minute stretches of focused work followed by breaks over meatballs, marinara, potatoes, and salad - the group wasn't there to workshop pages or critique drafts. All of them were working on second books. While productivity and accountability were factors, the point was companionship.

This moderated literary conversation brings these five women of color together to reflect on what it means to build a creative practice rooted in friendship. They'll talk about skepticism and structure, motherhood and momentum, finishing hard books, and how showing up - at the same restaurant, at the same time, with the same people - changed their relationship to writing itself. With several new novels published this fall, the group looks back on the communal labor and friendships that made these books possible.

At its core, this is a conversation about art, discipline, and the sustaining power of community - and a reminder that sometimes the most radical thing a writer can do is not write alone.

These two online events will take place on the City of West Hollywood's WeHo Arts YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/wehoarts. Members of the public who RSVP by visiting the WeHo Reads webpage on the City's website at https://www.weho.org/wehoreads will be sent a direct link for viewing.

About WeHo Reads - WeHo Reads is the City of West Hollywood's literary series, which has presented new, diverse, and notable writers of interest to the West Hollywood community since 2013. Just a few notable past participants have included: André Aciman, Richard Blanco, LeVar Burton, Stephen Chbosky, Curtis Chin, Natasha Deón, Emma Donoghue, Natalie Goldberg, Chris Kraus, Armistead Maupin, Walter Mosely, Eileen Myles, Danez Smith, Nina Revoyr, David Ulin, and Charles Yu. A more comprehensive list of WeHo Reads participants is available on the City's website.

WeHo Reads is presented by the City of West Hollywood's Arts Division and is produced by BookSwell, a literary events and media company dedicated to lifting-up writers from historically excluded communities.

All events are free to attend. For additional information about these events and to RSVP, visit https://www.weho.org/wehoreads.

For more information about WeHo Reads, please contact Mike Che, City of West Hollywood Arts Coordinator, at (323) 848-6377 or at [email protected]. For people who are Deaf or hard of hearing dial 711 or 1-800-735-2929 (TTY) or 1-800-735-2922 (voice) for California Relay Service (CRS) assistance.

For up-to-date information about City of West Hollywood news and events, follow @wehocity on social media, sign-up for news updates at www.weho.org/email, and visit the City's calendar of meetings and events at www.weho.org/calendar. Receive text updates by texting "WeHo" to (323) 848-5000. Read feature articles about people, places, and City events at www.helloweho.com. City Hall programs and services information is available at www.weho.org.

For reporters and members of the media seeking additional information about the City of West Hollywood, please contact the City of West Hollywood's Public Information Officer, Sheri A. Lunn, at (323) 848-6391 or [email protected].