City of West Hollywood’s 2025 ‘WeHo Reads’ Fall Programming Launches on October 8

The City of West Hollywood's 2025 WeHo Reads literary series launches its fall programming with three upcoming events.

On Wednesday, October 8, 2025, WeHo Reads: Voices of Transformation will take place in-person from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the West Hollywood Library Community Meeting Room, located at 625 N. San Vicente Boulevard. This National Hispanic Heritage Month event features four dynamic writers whose work summons their powers of creativity and advocacy to help achieve transformation by first imagining it. The participating writers will share expansive visions of life, death, and the profound, sometimes unsettling moments that lie 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 from 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, who was recently announced to be part of the Academy of American Poets' 2025 Poet Laureate Fellowship cohort, will open the event with the reading of a poem.

This event is free to attend, and RSVPs are requested at https://www.weho.org/wehoreads. Attendees are advised that the program may include mature language and themes.

Online on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, at 6:30 p.m. WeHo Reads: Wild and Powerful Imaginations brings together three groundbreaking trans authors whose work expands the horizons of speculative fiction, journalism, and cultural commentary. Through their novels, anthologies, and advocacy, these writers transform personal and collective experiences into bold acts of creativity and resistance. How do writers harness their imaginations to create new worlds, reshape realities, and advocate for justice? How can their stories help us envision more inclusive futures?

This Transgender Awareness Month event will feature: Charlie Jane Anders, award-winning author of Lessons in Magic and Disaster, a new novel about a trans witch who teaches her mother magic; M.M. Olivas, a trans, Xicanxfuturist, author of Sundown in San Ojuela, and alumna of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop and the Lambda Literary Workshop; and Tuck Woodstock, host of the celebrated Gender Reveal podcast and the editor of both the Lambda Literary Award-winning 2 Trans 2 Furious: An Extremely Serious Journal of Transgender Street Racing Studies and the upcoming anthology Sex Change and the City. This event will take place on the City of West Hollywood's WeHo Arts YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/wehoarts. Members of the public can RSVP and be sent a direct link to view this free event by visiting the WeHo Reads webpage on the City's website at https://www.weho.org/wehoreads.

Online on Wednesday, December 3, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. WeHo Reads: Going Dark to Bring Light will explore dark themes in fiction to shed light on humanity's capacity for grace and terrible crimes. Writers of mystery and crime fiction walk a tightrope between revelation and revulsion. They crack open the facades of families, cities, and histories to expose what festers underneath. Whether through the sly charm of a cozy, the razor edge of noir, or the suffocating weight of suspense, these stories don't just entertain - they force us to confront the mess of being human.

The event will feature Jennifer Chow, Lefty-award nominee and author of the Magical Fortune Cookie novels, the L.A. Night Market Mysteries series, and the Sassy Cat series; Nicholas George, author of the A Walk Through England mystery series; Tori Eldridge, bestselling, award-winning author of Kaua'i Storm, Dance Among the Flames, and the Lily Wong thrillers about a Chinese-Norwegian modern-day ninja in Los Angeles; and Georgia Jeffries, educator and award-winning author of The Younger Girl, a Midwest noir based on a true crime of family murder and betrayal that crosses three generations.

The online events will take place via the City of West Hollywood's WeHo Arts YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/wehoarts. Members of the public can RSVP and be sent a direct link to view this free event by visiting the WeHo Reads webpage on the City's website at https://www.weho.org/wehoreads.

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, Armistead Maupin, Charles Yu, Chris Kraus, Curtis Chin, Danez Smith, David Ulin, Eileen Myles, Emma Donoghue, LeVar Burton, Natalie Goldberg, Natasha Deón, Nina Revoyr, Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco, Stephen Chbosky, and Walter Mosely.

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. Additional support is provided by media partnerships with Book Soup and Los Angeles Review of Books. All events are free to attend. For additional information about WeHo Reads events, for viewing links, 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 https://www.weho.org/email, and visit the City's calendar of meetings and events at https://www.weho.org/calendar. West Hollywood City Hall is open for walk-in services at public counters or by appointment by visiting https://www.weho.org/appointments. City Hall services are accessible by phone at (323) 848-6400 and via website at https://www.weho.org. Receive text updates by texting "WeHo" to (323) 848-5000.

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].