The City of West Hollywood closes-out its 2024 WeHo Reads literary series season on Wednesday, December 11, 2024 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. with a free in-person event WeHo Reads: Through a Lens Queerly at the City of West Hollywood’s Council Chambers/Public Meeting Room, located at 625 N. San Vicente Boulevard. The event is free, but RSVP is requested via Eventbrite.

The discussion will bring together an award-winning makeup and drag artist, a poet and author, a photographer, and a culture writer to discuss how they point a critical lens at themselves and their community and answer the questions: What makes a memory? What makes an idol? Through what lens do we examine ourselves and our community?

The event will be moderated by Glen Alen, three-time Emmy award-winning makeup artist, drag artist, and celebrity impersonator.

Additional participants will include the following:

Charles Jensen is the author of Splice of Life: A Memoir in 13 Film Genres (Santa Fe Writer’s Project 2024) and the collection of poetry Instructions between Takeoff and Landing. His previous books include two collections of poetry and seven chapbooks of cross-genre work. The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs designated him a 2019-2020 Cultural Trailblazer, and he is the recipient of the 2020 Outwrite Nonfiction Chapbook Award, 2018 Zócalo Poetry Prize, a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Prize, the 2007 Frank O’Hara Chapbook Award, and an Artist’s Project Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts. 

Manuel Betancourt is the author of The Male Gazed: On Hunks, Heartthrobs, and What Pop Culture Taught Me About (Desiring) Men, named one of 2023's best books by Time magazine and NPR. A Colombian writer and film critic, his work has been featured in Variety, The AV Club, New York Times, BuzzFeed Reader, Los Angeles Times, Film Comment, Esquire, The Atlantic, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Film Quarterly. 

Aaron Jay Young is a portrait photographer and the author of the photography book Queen which captures the beauty, elegance, and humor of some of the drag community's most prominent performers. More than 100 drag queens are featured in portraits that unequivocally encapsulate the diverse and inclusive nature of the art of drag including Shangela, Bob the Drag Queen, Trixie Mattel, Gigi Goode, Sasha Velour, Bianca Del Rio, and more.

Jen Cheng, City of West Hollywood City Poet Laureate and author of Braided Spaces, will open the event with an original poem.

Books will be available for purchase by Book Soup, an independent bookstore located in West Hollywood since 1975.

About WeHo Reads – WeHo Reads is the City of West Hollywood’s literary series, which has presented new, diverse, and notable writers of interest to the West Hollywood community since 2013. Some notable past participants have included: André Aciman, Armistead Maupin, Charles Yu, Chris Kraus, Curtis Chin, Danez Smith, David Ulin, Eileen Myles, Emma Donoghue, LeVar Burton, Natalie Goldberg, Natasha Deón, Nina Revoyr, Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco, Stephen Chbosky, and Walter Mosely. A comprehensive list of WeHo Reads participants is available on the City’s website.

WeHo Reads is presented by the City of West Hollywood’s Arts Division and is produced by BookSwell, a literary events and media company dedicated to lifting-up writers from historically excluded communities. For additional information about WeHo Reads events, visit www.weho.org/wehoreads.

For more information about WeHo Reads, please contact Mike Che, City of West Hollywood Arts Coordinator, at (323) 848-6377 or at mche@weho.org. For people who are Deaf or hard of hearing dial 711 or 1-800-735-2929 (TTY) or 1-800-735-2922 (voice) for California Relay Service (CRS) assistance.

For up-to-date information about City of West Hollywood news and events, follow @wehocity on social media, sign-up for news updates at www.weho.org/email, and visit the City’s calendar of meetings and events at www.weho.org/calendar. Receive text updates by texting “WeHo” to (323) 848-5000. West Hollywood City Hall is open for walk-in services at public counters or by appointment by visiting www.weho.org/appointments. City Hall services are accessible by phone at (323) 848-6400 and via website at www.weho.org.

For reporters and members of the media seeking additional information about the City of West Hollywood, please contact the City of West Hollywood’s Public Information Officer, Sheri A. Lunn, at (323) 848-6391 or slunn@weho.org.