Jan Beatty
Photo: Beth Kukucka

LA Times Festival of Books: Jan Beatty, David St. John, Kim Dower, more

26 APRIL 2025 — saturday

The 30th annual LA Times Festival of Books presents indoor and outdoor events including over 200 author and celebrity panels, one-on-one conversations, music, film screenings, book signings, exhibitor booths, Children's Stage, food and cooking demos, bilingual programming and more, authors include poet Amanda Gorman, novelist Percival Everett, Pico Iyer, Chelsea Handler, Stacey Abrams, and many more; today's Poetry Stage features emcees Elena Karina Byrne and Marty L. Williams; 10:00 am: Airea D. Matthews, Bread and Circus; 10:20 am: Remica Bingham-Risher, Room Swept Home; 10:40 am: Cindy Juyoung Ok, Ward Toward; 11:00 am: Alison C. Rollins, Black Bell; 11:20 am: David St. John, Prayer for My Daughter; 11:40 am: Consuelo Wise, boy; Noon: Ariana Benson, Black Pastoral; 12:30 pm: LA Times Book Prize in Poetry Finalists Roundtable with Remica Bingham-Risher, Airea D. Matthews, John Evans, Cindy Juyoung Ok, and Alison C. Rollins; 1:00 pm: Danez Smith, Bluff; 1:20 pm: Kim Dower, What She Wants: Poems on Obsession, Desire, Despair, Euphoria; 1:40 pm: Elizabeth Jacobson, There Are as Many Songs in the World as Branches of Coral; 2:00 pm: Mark Irwin, Once When Green; 2:20 pm: Louise Mathias, What if the Invader is Beautiful; 2:40 pm: Gabrielle Civil, In and Out of Place: Mexico/Performance/Writing; 3:20 pm: Callie Siskel, Two Minds; 3:40 pm: Jan Beatty, Dragstripping; 4:00 pm: Blas Falconer, Rara Avis; 4:20 pm: Michelle Bitting, Dummy Ventriloquist; 4:40 pm: Daniel Lawless, I Tell You This Now; 5:00 pm: Jose Hernandez Diaz, Portrait of the Artist as a Brown Man; 5:20 pm: Poetry Art Performance, with poet Gail Wronsky and artist Gronk Nicandro; University of Southern California campus, admission is free, photo ID will be required to enter USC, tickets for panels come with a small reservation fee required for panel sessions in classrooms and campus theatres, event parking is $20, parking garages are credit card only, 10:00 am - 6:00 pm PDT (For more information, eventinfo@latimes.com, or visit: events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/schedule)