Bookfest to highlight Glendale’s history, culture

Glendale Arts has launched several Pop Up! events in the community in the past, including dance classes, concerts and even yoga sessions. Starting Friday, the organization, along with its partners, will start an inaugural free book festival in Glendale with four events planned throughout this month.

The series, called the Pop Up! Bookfest, will highlight the history and culture of Glendale through multilingual readings and arts workshops, according to event organizers. Glendale Arts is working with Writ Large Press, Friends of the Glendale Public Library, the Museum of Neon Art and Abril Books on the series.

Jess Castillo, special events coordinator at Glendale Arts, helped lead the creation of the Bookfest after several conversations with various partners who have encouraged bringing similar programming to the city.

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“We were talking about book festivals, particularly in the L.A. area, and one of the disparities that we noticed is the lack of multilingual support,” Castillo said. “In talking more about the idea, we decided that Glendale would be a really great place to host an event series like this and have it be an annual event. We have such a diverse community here, and Glendale doesn’t really have its own book festival.”

Abril Books, located at East Broadway and North Jackson Street, has been in Glendale for close to 20 years and today acts as a sort of cultural center, holding about four events, such as book signings and film screenings, each month.

The store will host a publishing workshop for would-be authors as part of the Bookfest series and, although owner Arno Yeretzian isn’t running the event himself, he said he is excited to cultivate the local arts scene and help novice publishers get off the ground.

“[Castillo and I] talked about doing some interesting things to make Glendale more active in culture art and music,” Yeretzian said. “It hasn’t been as active as some other cities, so I’m very happy that the Bookfest is happening, and Glendale is becoming a more interesting city.”

The Museum of Neon Art will kick off the series on Friday with an evening reading focused on the history of the noir genre in Glendale. Writ Large Press will hold a publishing workshop a week later at Abril Books. A multilingual reading is scheduled at the Glendale Central Library the following Friday.

Although focused primarily in downtown, Glendale Arts will conclude the festival Oct. 29 with a Make-a-zine workshop and tour of the historic Southern Pacific train station, thanks in part to the city’s department of community development.

“I’m really excited to see it grow,” Castillo said. “As we move on into each year we’ll bring in more partners and collaborators to make it clear that Glendale Arts is expanding outside of the downtown area to the rest of the city.”

For more information and a list of events, go to glendalearts.org.

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Jeff Landa, jeff.landa@latimes.com

Twitter: @JeffLanda

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