The February 22 Culver City Book Festival event will highlight authors, small-press publishers and literary nonprofits.
The Culver City Book Festival will return on Saturday, February 22, from 10 AM to 5 PM. The event is FREE and open to everyone, and will highlight the work of local authors, publishers, journals, and literary nonprofits. A partnership between Culver City Arts Foundation, Village Well Books & Coffee, El Martillo Press, Beyond Baroque, the Wende Museum and the City of Culver City.
The event takes place on site at the Wende Museum, 10808 Culver Boulevard, Culver City, CA 90230.
“This festival is intended to be accessible to and inclusive of the many creative voices in our community,” says Village Well Books & Coffee founder and owner Jennifer Caspar. Village Well is an independent bookstore and café located in downtown Culver City, opened in 2020. “We are delighted to be the organizers for this year’s festival, which gathers and channels the energy of this very creative community.”
In addition to tables exhibiting the work of local presses, there will be panels on a variety of topics including:
● “Immigration Then Today & Tomorrow” with Jason de León (2024 National Book Award Winner for Nonfiction, 2017 MacArthur Foundation Fellow), Natalia Molina (USC Professor of History, 2020 MacArthur Foundation Fellow), and Jesse Katz (Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author), moderated by Gustavo Arellano (Pulitzer Prize-winning LA Times columnist and author)
● “The Truth Genre Tells” with fantasy and horror writers Olivie Blake, Chuck Tingle, Philip Fracassi, Sarah Langan, Liz Kerin, and CJ Leede, moderated by author and Village Well bookseller Colin Hinckley
● A conversation on Altadena’s history as a community for Black artists, convened by Beyond Baroque
● Creative activities for all ages
● Zine-Making
● Kids activities
○ Storytimes w/ Seth Fishman and Nell Cross Beckerman
○ Collage-making w/ Shira Sergant
○ Origami w/ Joel Stern
○ Cardboard makerspace with reDiscover Center
○ Kids yoga with Zooga Yoga
Exhibitors will include literary organizations such as 826LA, What Books Press, Heavy Manners Library, Angel City Press, X Artists’ Press Books, WriteOn!, and more.
For more information and current list of participants and activities, email: bookfest@villagewell.com.
The Culver City Book Festival is a partnership between Culver City Arts Foundation, Village Well Books & Coffee, El Martillo Press, the Wende Museum, Beyond Baroque, and the City of Culver City.
Village Well Books & Coffee is the only independent general interest bookstore in Culver City and carries 15,000 titles in all formats and genres. The store hosts a variety of literary events, community gatherings, and artistic workshops and programs. The café serves healthy drinks, snacks and meals, including beer and wine. Located in the heart of downtown Culver City across from City Hall and the Kirk Douglas Theatre.
Culver City Arts Foundation is a local nonprofit founded to boost the creative culture of Culver City. Through fiscal grants, program supports, and creative networking opportunities, CCAF supports an engaged community that values a thriving arts culture.
The Wende is a Culver City-based art museum, cultural center, and archive of the Cold War that preserves history and brings it to life through exhibitions, scholarship, education, and community engagement.
El Martillo Press, founded by Matt Sedillo and David A. Romero, publishes writers whose pens strike the page with clear intent; words with purpose to pry apart assumed norms and to hammer away at injustice. El Martillo was Launched in Los Angeles with a diverse group of celebrated and hardworking writers who embody its working-class intellectual spirit.
Beyond Baroque is an arts center whose mission is to advance the public awareness of and involvement in the literary arts; to provide a challenging program of events which promotes new work and diversity; to foster a place in the community for the exchange of challenging ideas and the nurturing of new work; to support writers through readings, workshops, books sales, publication, access to archived material and performance space; to encourage collaboration and cross-fertilization between writers and artists in multiple disciplines with the goal of producing mixed media art; to use the literary arts as a foundation for increasing education and literacy in our community.
