Wave Staff Report
WEST HOLLYWOOD — The city is inviting community members to celebrate literature and local authors with the 2022 WeHo Reads literary series.
The series will be presented live online on the city’s WeHo Arts YouTube channel atwww.youtube.com/wehoarts and is produced by BookSwell.
Featured authors and poets for the season include Ryka Aoki, Patrick Nathan, Lynell George, Lynne Thompson and Cassandra Lane.
This year’s theme is Road to Joy. Guest poets and authors will be invited to discuss how they create joy in their writing and in their lives and invite readers to participate and find their own paths to healing and contentment with moments of guided meditation, art appreciation, writing prompts, a photography contest and other creative projects.
There also will be a special October event featuring a selection of poets from the Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship Program.
WeHo Reads 2022 launches Jan. 25 at 6 p.m. with poets and writers sharing songs, poems and reflections on healing and hope. Shonda Buchanan will open the event with a song and discuss her memoir “Black Indian,” which explores her family’s legacy of being African Americans with American Indian roots and how they dealt with not just society’s ostracization but the consequences of this dual inheritance.
Peter J. Harris will discuss the Black Man of Happiness Project’s “See You” campaign, which excavates historical photos of Black men “emanating a sense of joy.”
Imani Tolliver will recount her intersectional and sacred journey as a Black queer woman and share excerpts from her memoir-in-verse “Runaway.” Tolliver has worked with the justice system and its intersection with the arts for more than a decade.
The online event will take place on the city’s WeHo Arts YouTube Channel atwww.youtube.com/wehoarts. Members of the public can RSVP and be sent a direct link to view the event by visiting the WeHo Reads webpage on the city’s website at www.weho.org/wehoreads.
Additional WeHo Reads 2022 events will follow throughout the year.
WeHo Reads has presented authors of interest to the West Hollywood community since 2013. Past participants have included: André Aciman, Andrew Rannells, Arlene and Alan Alda, Armistead Maupin, Bianca Del Rio, Bryan Fuller, Carrie Brownstein, Charles Phoenix, Charles Yu, Chris Kraus, Danez Smith, David Ulin, Eileen Myles, Eloise Klein Healy, Emma Donoghue, Erwin Chemerinsky, Henry Rollins, Jacob Tobia, James Sie, LeVar Burton, Lillian Faderman, Lorna Luft, Luis J. Rodriguez, Michael York, Michelle Visage, Myriam Gurba, Natalie Goldberg, Natasha Deón, Nina Revoyr, Patrisse Cullors, Patt Morrison, Randa Jarrar, Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco, Ryan Gosling, Sarah Silverman, Seymour Stein, Stephen Chbosky, Tananarive Due, and Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim.
For more information, contact Mike Che, the city’s arts coordinator, at (323) 848-6377.
