Lineage and Light: A Night of Poetry

Bel Canto Books is delighted to host a night of poetry with authors Cathy Linh Che (BECOMING GHOST), Jason Bayani (EVERYONE I LOVE, ALIVE), Michelle Peñaloza (ALL THE WORDS I CAN REMEMBER ARE POEMS), and Ching-In Chen (SHINY CITY).

Kindly RSVP so we can plan accordingly. Please stay home if you feel sick.

This event will be held indoors at KUBO LB (3976 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach CA).

EVENT SCHEDULE

6:45pm - Event check-in begins

7:00pm - Welcome & event start

7:15-8:00pm - Author readings, conversation, and Q&A

8:00pm-9:00pm - Book signing & shopping time

9:00pm - Event ends

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Cathy Linh Che is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of Becoming Ghost (Washington Square Press, 2025), Split (Alice James Books) and co-author, with Kyle Lucia Wu, of the children’s book An Asian American A to Z: a Children’s Guide to Our History (Haymarket Books). Her video installation Appocalips is an Open Call commission with The Shed NY, and her film We Were the Scenery won the Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction at the Sundance Film Festival. She teaches as Core Faculty in Poetry at the low residency MFA program in Creative Writing at Antioch University in Los Angeles and works as Executive Director at Kundiman. She lives in New York City.

Jason Bayani is the author of Everyone I Love, Alive (Omnidawn Publishing 2025), Locus (Omnidawn Publishing 2019) and Amulet (Write Bloody Publishing 2013). He's an MFA graduate from Saint Mary's College and is the co-director of Kearny Street Workshop, the oldest multi-disciplinary Asian Pacific American arts organization in the country. He performs regularly around the country and debuted his solo theater show "Locus of Control" in 2016 with theatrical runs in San Francisco, New York, and Austin.

Michelle Peñaloza is the author of All The Words I Can Remember Are Poems (Persea Books, 2025), winner of the 2024 Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award and the James Laughlin Award, awarded by The Academy of American Poets. She is also the author of Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire, winner of the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk National Poetry Prize (Inlandia Books, 2019), and landscape/heartbreak (Two Sylvias, 2015). Some of her honors include the Frederick Bock Prize from the Poetry Foundation as well as grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, the Community Foundation of Mendocino County, and PAWA (Philippine American Writers and Artists). The proud daughter of Filipino immigrants, Michelle was born in the suburbs of Detroit, MI and raised in Nashville, TN. She now lives in Covelo, CA.

Ching-In Chen is author of Shiny City, recombinant (Lambda Literary Award), The Heart's Traffic: a novel in poems; to make black paper sing and Kundiman for Kin :: Information Retrieval for Monsters. Chen co-edited The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities and is a Kelsey Street Press and Airlie Press editor. They collaborate on Breathing in a Time of Disaster, exploring breath and environmental justice.

ABOUT BEL CANTO BOOKS

Founded by Jhoanna Belfer, a Filipina-American poet and former hospitality executive, Bel Canto Books offers a curated selection of fiction, nonfiction and children's books, organized around a theme of the month, in particular celebrating books by women and people of color. Learn more at belcantobooks.net.

ABOUT KUBO LB

KUBO LB is a creative community space for Filipinx, BIPOC, LGBTQ, and Women led small businesses. KUBO LB is a space to support and educate small businesses through retail, business workshops and more. Learn more at kubolb.com.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Bel Canto Books - Long Beach, CA