My Calendar

Events in August 2021

  • - Around the World with Karen & Nicole “Precious Friend”
    Around the World with Karen & Nicole “Precious Friend”

    Around the World with Karen & Nicole “Precious Friend”


    August 5, 2021

    Thursday, August 5, 2021 (7:00 PM)

    First Thursdays Arts Walk

    with Inlandia Institute and Riverside Public Library

    Around the World with Karen & Nicole “Precious Friend”

    FREE and in person in the new Main Library Community Room (street level, on Mission Inn Ave.)

    3900 Mission Inn Ave, Riverside, CA 92501

    In celebration of the Friends of the Riverside Library and National Friendship Day August 1, storyteller Karen Rae Kraut and puppeteer Nicole Cloeren will present “Precious Friend” stories, poems, puppets, and a song or two about friendship. Is it true that with a friend joys are doubled and sorrows cut in half?  What do you think?

    Karen Rae Kraut has been blending story, song, and creative movement in schools, libraries, museums, and theaters from California to East Tennessee since 1990. She has toured for the Smithsonian, and was commissioned by the McCallum Theatre to create a storyteller’s version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Karen’s CD, Cooler Water Cora and Other Stories, is the winner of an iParenting Media Award for Audio Excellence and a National Parenting Publications Honors Award.

    Nicole Cloeren is the founder of Puppets a la Carte, where she uses puppets and techniques of improvisation to create a space of surprise and wonder in which we can all learn from one another. She is a resident artist at Riverside Studios, has performed with puppets at numerous indoor, outdoor, and online events around Southern California, and loves partnering with other artists.

  • - Book Launch and Book Signing for Portrait of a Deputy Public Defender (or how I became a punk rock lawyer) by Juanita E. Mantz, Esq.
    Book Launch and Book Signing for Portrait of a Deputy Public Defender (or how I became a punk rock lawyer) by Juanita E. Mantz, Esq.

    Book Launch and Book Signing for Portrait of a Deputy Public Defender (or how I became a punk rock lawyer) by Juanita E. Mantz, Esq.


    August 21, 2021

    Saturday, August 21, 2021 (1:00-4:00 PM)

    Inlandia Institute Book Launch and Book Signing for

    Portrait of a Deputy Public Defender (or how I became a punk rock lawyer) by Juanita E. Mantz, Esq.

    In person at Riverside Art Museum (masks required)

    4178 Mission Inn Avenue, Riverside, CA 92501

    Open to the public with admission to RAM $5 adults/$3 seniors & students

    On Saturday, August 21, 2021, from 1:00-4:00 PM, join Inlandia Institute at Riverside Art Museum for a one-of-a kind book launch for a one-of-a kind book. Writer, performer, podcaster – and attorney – Juanita E. Mantz, Esq. will be reading and signing her just-released chapbook from Bamboo Dart Press, Portrait of a Deputy Public Defender (or how I became a punk rock lawyer) accompanied by – what else? – punk music! DJ Eser will be jockeying disks in the atrium, and Bamboo Dart writers Romaine Washington and Allan Callaci will join Juanita in the literary mosh pit for some additional readings. Don’t miss it!

    Portrait of a Deputy Public Defender by Juanita E. Mantz, Esq. is a multi-genre chapbook containing memoir pieces, social justice essays and poetry. It describes the author’s love of punk rock and her quest to challenge the system of mass incarceration as a deputy public defender and the intersection between punk rock and public defense.

    Juanita E. Mantz (“JEM”) is a deputy public defender, writer, performer and podcaster, one who believes that stories have the power to change the world. She graduated from UCR in 1999 with a Bachelor's in English Literature and received her J.D. from USC Law in 2002. She is in the low residency MFA creative writing program at The University of New Orleans. Juanita has been with the Law Offices of the Public Defender in Riverside County for over a decade. She specializes in representing incompetent clients under PC Section 1368 and has taken many serious felony cases to trial on their mental health issues.