Join us at Hotel Cafe, July 30th at 6pm for a monthly offering of short fiction, personal essays, poetry, spoken word + music produced by Conrad Romo. This month featuring: Amanda Fletcher, Xach Fromson, Yennie Cheung, Mike Sonksen, Chelsea Rose and our musical guest is Erin & Melissa. Entry: $7

Amanda Fletcher is a 2012 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow. She was a flash fiction finalist for the Orlando Prize. Her work has appeared in the Orange County Register, Hippocampus, Coast and AfterParty Magazine. She is currently working on her memoir tentatively titled, HALO.

Xach Fromson is the co-founder of the Shades & Shadows literary series. He is a Los Angeles native who has been obsessed with horror and dark fiction from a very young age. After a brief and ill-advised attempt at being a theater major, he received his BA in Creative Writing from California State University Northridge in 2009. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California Riverside’s Palm Desert program. He appeared on stage at Dirty Laundry Lit in February, 2013, and has had work appear on The Rumpus, The Los Angeles Times, and the anthologies Halloween Tales and Winter Horror-Days. He is currently in various stages of working on a ton of projects. Asking him his favorite book will earn you as blank a stare as asking him his favorite wine or whiskey. And once, he slew a dragon. Find him on Twitter @_mythogenesis_.

Yennie Cheung is co-author of the upcoming book DTLA/37: Downtown Los Angeles in Thirty-seven Stories. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UC Riverside-Palm Desert, and her work has been published in such places as The Los Angeles Times, Word Riot, Angels Flight • Literary West, The Best Small Fictions 2015, and the PEN Center/Rattling Wall anthology Only Light Can Do That. She lives in Los Angeles.

Mike Sonksen is equally a scholar and performer. Mike Sonksen, also …known as, Mike the Poet, is a 3rd-generation L.A. native acclaimed for poetry performances, published articles and mentoring teen writers. Following his graduation from U.C.L.A. in 1997, he has published over 500 essays and poems. Mike has an Interdisciplinary M.A. in English and History and his writing has been included in programs with the Mayor’s Office, the Los Angeles Public Library’s Made in LA. series, Grand Park, the Music Center and the Friends of the Los Angeles River. His most recent book, Poetics of Location was published by Writ Large Press. Mike has taught at Cal State L.A., Southwest College and Woodbury University.

Chelsea Rose is an art-minded person from southern California. While attending UC Riverside for linguistics, she was Editor-in-Chief of the 49th edition of Mosaic: A Journal of Literature and Art. She curated The Casserole Online Reading Series, a literary reading/interview show broadcast and archived on YouTube. While living in Seattle, Chelsea created an art happening called The Party of Your Dreams. She also once collaborated with a friend to bedazzle and collage a disused toilet that was left outside her apartment, and it remained on the street as a work of art for a month. Her writing has appeared in Black Napkin Press, Phantom Journal, Catacomb Journal and elsewhere.

Erin & Melissa met in a magical place not found on traditional maps. One day they realized their penchant for comedy and nonsense. Today they are living it up in SoCal making movies, taking pictures and involving themselves in general ruckus.

Come early! Seating is limited and we start on time!