(And if you plan to also look for comics, here’s a Free Comic Book Day locator to find a store near you.

“We’d really like people to come out for something that they’re interested in, and then take a break, buy a book, have a cup of tea or a sandwich – and then stay for another one,” says Ward. “We want to make it an experience where they just want to hang out for a while.”

(Oh, and my Bookish colleagues, Sandra Tsing Loh and Samantha Dunn, will be talking with Diane Marie Brown.) “It’s a combination of authors, librarians, educators, and people who have been affected by it, too.”Īs well as that one, I’m looking forward to the “Bookstores We Love” panel with local booksellers from The Ripped Bodice, Flintridge Bookstore, North Figueroa Bookshop and Octavia’s Bookshelf. “It’s very obviously very timely,” says Ward of the panel. I do love that, because I think it is truly a community festival.” “Anyone can see our call for submissions and submit a proposal. “The majority of everything you see on the program is a proposal from someone within the community,” says Kat Ward, event manager for Light Bringer Project, which puts on the festival. The panels sound terrific: There’s one on Octavia Butler’s “Kindred,” another called “Reclaiming Witches and Monstrous Women,” as well as “Writing From Our Immigrant Hearts,” “Queer Writers Tracking Literary Ancestries,” “Writing the Killer Crime Novel” and “Comic Disruption.” (And full disclosure: The Pasadena Star-News, representing our papers, is an event sponsor for the first time this year, but I’m writing about because – no surprise – I’ve been attending the event for years.) Inside Mountain View Mausoleum in Altadena during LitFest Pasadena on April 30, 2022. Over the course of the free, two-day festival, there’ll be panel discussions, author talks, book signings, food trucks and more. (And, speaking only for myself, I think I’d like it if people gathered by my eternal resting place to talk about books.) Is walking its echoey halls to get to a book talk just the tiniest bit strange? Sure, but with its stained glass windows, marble halls and quiet residents, it’s got more character than your typical hotel conference room. The newly rechristened LitFest in the Dena (formerly known as LitFest Pasadena) is back for a second year at Mountain View Mausoleum in Altadena this Saturday and Sunday, May 6-7, from 12:30 to 6 p.m.Īnd yes, mausoleum means what you think it does. Do you have book plans this weekend? Along with visiting some local shops for Free Comic Book Day, I’m planning to attend one of my favorite Southern California book festivals – one that’s held at a very unlikely locale.

The spy and the traitor book