Palabras Literary Salon (Nov 2026 edition)

Come enjoy an afternoon with Palabras Literary Salon, a BIPOC-centered literary community event with host Jen Cheng in Chinatown Los Angeles.

Our September edition features acclaimed poet Lynne Thompson. Our event has a guest readers circle, a curated invited list of diverse BIPOC poets, writers, playwrights, and creatives to read 3-minutes of writing to celebrate this salon's theme of "misdemeanors." This theme is about the crimes against your body, your heart, your soul.

All are welcome to attend - especially bring your allies and others curious to hear BIPOC voices.

Our guest readers circle includes award-winning poets and writers in addition to emerging artists: Aditi Khorana, Lory Bedikian, Alexandra Nichole Salazar, Jia-Rui Cook, M. Anne Kalai, José Enrique Medina, Pōmaikaʻi Hanakahi-Gushiken, two Macondistas Pat Alderate and Felipe Garcia, and three other poets laureateTina Demirdjian, Rhonda Mitchell, Jen Cheng. Light reception is provided.

• This salon series has been around for 4+ years and is volunteer-run + grassroots-driven. If each attendee donated $10 or more, we could cover our costs. We need everyone to pitch in on the honor system. If you can afford more, we would would appreciate your donation to help support other community members. We believe in accessibility, so if you need a scholarship ticket, please privately email the host ([email protected]) with the subject header "scholarship."
• Please kindly help us with your early RSVP here to attend and join in the facilitated discussion. Previous events have sold out so please join the waitlist if the RSVPs are full - people do cancel! We are asking for RSVPs for priority entry due to limited capacity.
• Everyone is welcome. Drop-ins are welcome.
• Please arrive by 12:45pm as we would like to start at 1pm and finish by 2:30pm to have time for post event mingling, community conversation, and reception.
• Please budget for time to get your street parking in the neighborhood. There is free parking if you take the time to walk several blocks. There is a $5 parking lot across the street on Broadway at Mandarin Plaza and other neighborhood lots.

We are glad to have you celebrate with us on Saturday, November 21, 2026 at 1pm at Studious Coworking in Chinatown (418 Bamboo Lane, Los Angeles, CA 90012).

More about Palabras Literary Salon

With a mission to create intercultural community building, Jen Cheng founded Palabras Literary Salon , inspired by our elders of civil rights consciousness raising and Maya Angelou's salons in the Harlem Renaissance. As a facilitator, Jen Cheng, brings home-cooking and light snacks to the event as we build bridges by breaking bread together. We sit in a non-heirarchical circle, without a stage. This is not an open-mic. Talk-story and witnessing are ways we can build better understanding of our humanity. If you are interested in being invited as a guest reader, please attend a salon to see if this format is a fit for your writing. Note: This event is an independent project and not affiliated with Jen's role with the City of West Hollywood. More about the salon on Jen's website: www.jencvoice.com/palabras

More about our featured poet

was the 4th Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles. The daughter of Caribbean immigrants, her poetry collections include Beg No Pardon (2007), winner of the Perugia Press Prize and the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writers Award; Start With A Small Guitar (2013), from What Books Press; and Fretwork (2019), winner of the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize. Thompson’s honors include the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award (poetry) and the Stephen Dunn Prize for Poetry as well as fellowships from the City of Los Angeles, Vermont Studio Center, and the Summer Literary Series in Kenya. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Poetry, Poem-A-Day (Academy of American Poets), New England Review, Colorado Review, Pleiades, Ecotone, and Best American Poetry, to name a few.

A lawyer by training, Thompson sits on the boards of the Los Angeles Review of Books and Cave Canem and is the Chair of the Board of Trustees at Scripps College, her alma mater. She facilitates private workshops, most recently for Beyond Baroque, Poetry By the Sea Conference, Moorpark College Writers Festival, and Central Coast Writers’ Conference. Thompson is a native of Los Angeles, California, where she resides.

Graphic: @JenCvoice

Exterior photo is from July 2024 edition of Palabras Literary Salon featuring Sonia Guiñansaca (Nostalgia and Borders). Event graphics by Jen Cheng. Interior photo is from Sept 2026 edition of Palabras Literary Salon.

All graphics designed by Jen Cheng. No generative AI is used in our work.